Review: I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

SUMMARY FROM GOODREADS:

If seventeen-year-old Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing standing between straightedge Skylar and art school are three minimum-wage months of summer. Skylar can taste the freedom—that is, until her mother loses her job and everything starts coming apart. Torn between her dreams and the people she loves, Skylar realizes everything she’s ever worked for is on the line.
Nineteen-year-old Josh Mitchell had a different ticket out of Creek View: the Marines. But after his leg is blown off in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be. What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s dusty Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and soon, something deeper.

MY TAKE:
I had this on my TBR pile for a while, and now that I've read it, I wish that I had gotten to it sooner.

In I'll Meet You There, Skylar dreams of finally getting out of her small town and studying art. However, things are going terribly for her mom, and Sky doesn't feel like she could leave her. Josh has just gotten back from Afghanistan, where he lost a leg to an IED. Aside from that, he's also struggling with PTSD. They become closer and start to consider if there's something more than friendship between them, but will they be able to overcame the challenges they still have to face.

While there were a few moments that bordered on cliche or predictable, as a whole, the book felt fresh and heart-wrenching to me. I was teary-eyed during quite a few scenes in the book. Josh and Skylar really go through a lot here, and I felt it all. All these things have happened to them, and while they try to fight it and persevere, sometimes it all feels like too much and that they're drowning and have nowhere to go. What's great, though, is that while they let themselves cry and angst it out, as it were, they pick themselves up and try to make things work.

The issues that the book deals with (PTSD and poverty) wasn't what I expected. I thought it was just going to be a run-of-the-mill romance. It wasn't, though. Sure, the romance played a big part in the story, but the romance wouldn't have been as successful if the things that Josh and Sky went through in their lives were just glossed over or handled with a heavy hand.

It was certainly an eye-opener for me, in the sense that while I was aware of PTSD and that it's not easy being an army family or girlfriend, I didn't think I actually got what it was like on an emotional level until I read this book.

I struggled when it came to deciding whether to rate this as four or five stars, since my rating was more of 4.5 stars. In the end, because the book gave me so much feels, and I was still thinking about it the day after reading it, I decided that this book deserves all five stars.

THE GOOD:

1. It's not just a typical love story.
2. It tackles sensitive topics honestly.
3. It will give you feels.  

THE BAD:

1. It may be too angsty for some. 

FAVORITE QUOTE/S:

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?” I opened my mouth to say San Francisco or maybe Madrid—somewhere exotic. But what came out was, “Here. Right here.” 

READ IT IF:

1. You like good-girl-playboy romances.
2. You know someone who is struggling with PTSD.
3. You are a military wife/girlfriend or know someone who is serving in the military.

RATING:


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