I'll Meet You There. Rating: Divine (Guest Post by Ashley S.)

Reader,
The brilliant Ashley S. returns with another guest review! One comment from me to augment it: I haven't read the book, but I find the cover upsetting. Using words that are not related to the title on a book cover always bothers me - this one reads as if titled "I'll Meet You There No Vacancy Motel Pool" - but what the hell, that's just me.

In other news, reader - I suppose I should say 'readers' - according to my metrics, you now number in the thousands. That's... crazy. And exciting. And only a tenth of my pageviews come from law enforcement agencies! Thanks for reading, and please, by all means, visit me on twitter @ReadSpoilers.
-A


Creek View is a town, sandwiched and lost between Los Angeles and San Francisco, that will swallow its children and spit them out with broken dreams. Creek View is a town that is hot and sticky and is a little like quicksand: the more you try to move, the more it will pull you back in.

This is true for seventeen-year-old Skylar Evans, who has been dreaming of getting out of Creek View for years, and is almost there. It’s also true for nineteen-year-old Josh Mitchell who got the farthest you can get from Creek View -- Afghanistan, thanks to the US Marine Corps -- but comes back, anything but whole.

So maybe they both understand what it’s like to dig their way out of quicksand, and while neither of them knows the answer, they will spend three months at their crappy minimum wage jobs in their even crappier home town, trying to figure it out. Together.

I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios...

 is a story about growing up, getting out, and moving on. It’s also about love and being broken and accepting what all those things mean. It’s honest, true to life, heartbreaking, and inspiring.

We first meet Skylar in the midst of life in Creek View. There’s a party and teenagers are getting drunk, being real, and making mistakes.

Skylar’s friends and the atmosphere of Creek View intrigued me early. Her best friend is a guy who I never once thought should be with Skyler, and she never once thought of him in any way romantically and it was so refreshing. I’m not saying relationships like this do not exist in YA, I could point you in the direction of some (Veronica Rossi’s Under the Never Sky trilogy and Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me series), however, it’s nice to see. And if you’re looking for the importance of female friendship, look no further. I’ll Meet You There has that, too, in the form of Dylan, a teenage mother who has no problem with her life in Creek View. She’s fierce and loyal and a beautiful contrast to Skylar and Chris’s desperate itch to get out of there.

And the youth of Creek View? They’re honest, the truest, and most realistic depiction of teenagers I’ve seen in awhile. They’re in a more conservative and low income area of California, struggling because of location and lifestyle, but they’re still real. I still saw them in my white, suburban teenage years.

Another hook was plunged into me in the form of Josh Mitchell. Josh was in Afghanistan but now he’s back all broken and incomplete, both mentally and physically. He’s missing a leg and suffering from PTSD and it all adds up to a parade of pills he has to take and a new life to navigate.

And life isn’t easy for Skylar either, roadblocks put up in the form of her mother’s depression and poverty. Now there’s Josh, who calls to her with a mixture of intrigue, love, and the urge to care for him. It’s sweet and haunting, much like Skylar and a lot like Josh.

Josh and Skylar’s story is told through both of their POVs. The switch back and forth between them is striking and lovely; Josh’s thoughts in big blocks of scattered runoff sentences and Skylar’s metaphors and pretty words contrasting beautifully. There are big feelings and even bigger missteps between two people who are just trying to figure out life and each other in very different ways. It’s easy to fall in love with both of them and with their depth and honesty,  you can’t help but root for them.

I’ll Meet You There is an honest look at two broken people and how they figure it all out together. It’s eye opening and true to veterans and others combating with mental illness, for people who feel lost and stuck, and for those whose bodies don’t work like everyone else’s. It shows us that what works for one, won’t work for another, that surrogate family members come in all different forms and for different reasons. It shows us that mistakes are okay and being broken is even more so.

It shows us that everything will be fine, even if it’s different.

Now, for Spoilers.

Because of the nature of the book, there’s no big twist ending or anything for me to reveal to you that will make you gasp and rip your hair out. But, what a lovely ending and I will tell you all about it because it still did surprise me.

Skylar’s back and forth whether she can leave her mother in the arms of a man she hates and still mentally unstable, ate at me the entire book. I didn’t want her to give up her chance at SF State because I was sucke dinto this world of hatred for this life like she was. But Josh is here! Josh is in Creek View, and as Skylar falls in love with him, he becomes another thing to keep her there.

But, she goes. She totally goes, you guys! Josh stays behind in Creek View to get himself better (with a gift from Skylar) and helps her drive up to San Francisco and start her new life. They’re still together, they totally kiss and have sex and it’s just as real, honest, and romantic as the rest of the book, but she goes off to start her life, and I just take that to mean that when Josh is ready, he joins her. And they’re happy and she’s a great artist and Josh does whatever makes Josh happy and they kiss a lot and try to sleep through the PTSD nightmares and just try.

That last bit is just my own wishful speculation, but it’s also right because I say it is.

Rating: Divine. 

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, what rating system did you expect?