I can't remember where I first heard about I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios, but I do remember that the reviews I saw for it were absolutely glowing. People really seemed to like this young adult contemporary read, so I put it on my Christmas list several years ago. I did receive it as a gift, but then stuck it on my shelf and never got around to actually picking it up. Every time I would look over at my shelf and spot it, I would think, Oh yeah, that's the book that's supposed to be really good. I've got to get around to it soon...and then I never would. So naturally, when I was assembling my 22 in 2022 list, I was sure to put this book on it. For my last read in February, I decided to finally pick it up and see if it lived up to all the hype.
The plot of the novel follows a young women named Skylar Evans. She's just graduated from high school and is eagerly awaiting the day she can leave her small hometown of Creekview, California and attend college in San Francisco. She lives in a trailer park with her mother and they live paycheck to paycheck, but Skylar has managed to earn a full scholarship and is excited to start an art program at her college. With only a few months before she leaves, however, things start to fall apart. Her mother loses her job at Taco Bell and falls into a deep depression. She begins drinking and seeing a really shady new boyfriend. Suddenly, Skylar's bright future is thrown into doubt. She feels like she can't leave her mom this way and begins to consider staying in Creekview and giving up on her dreams.
As Skylar is trying to figure out her next move, a young man named Josh Mitchell returns back to Creekview. He was serving in Afghanistan and sustained an injury in combat that led to the loss of his leg. He is struggling to readjust to civilian life and dealing with PTSD from his experiences. He knows Skylar from a part time job they share at a local motel, and they reconnect as both resume working there for the summer. Before long, they feel a powerful attraction to each other, but both are afraid to surrender to their feelings. Skylar is afraid that getting attached to a local guy will further deter her from her dreams of college in San Francisco. Josh is afraid that he is too damaged to be good for a woman like Skylar. Together, they must figure out their feelings and determine if being together is the best way to move forward with their lives.
By the time I got to the end of this novel, I found that I mostly enjoyed it. The story was very character driven, so there weren't a lot of plot events, but what was there was fairly engaging. I liked both Skylar and Josh as characters and I felt like Demetrios did a nice job making them both come alive. By the end of the novel, I was rooting for them both to succeed, but things were a little rocky for me at first. Josh starts off being pretty unlikable. As I read further in the story though, I came to understand why he behaves the way he does and I started to feel for him. Demetrios uses his character to explore the issues that many soldiers face when they return home from combat, including PTSD, reestablishing healthy relationships, and dealing with life-changing injuries. I have no experience in this area, but it felt like she gave an accurate portrayal of the difficulties those in the military face.
Skylar's issues centered mostly around the problems that come with poverty - not having enough money to buy necessities, having to work several low-paying jobs to make ends meet, having to grow up too fast to help support the household, etc. Her mother struggles with an alcohol addiction that makes her home life difficult at well. Part of her growth throughout the story involves her learning to take a step back from her mother's problems and choose to focus on herself. That's not an easy things to do and I thought that Demetrios conveys the heartbreak involved in making that decision well, even though there were several points where I was frustrated with her inability to let go.
Josh and Skylar's relationship was fairly well-developed, and I thought they were an interesting couple to watch come together. I wasn't feeling any second-hand butterflies in my stomach while I was reading, but the ways they interacted made sense and felt realistic. I was more into the coming-of-age aspect of the story than I was into the romance, but it was fine. I think actual teen readers will enjoy that element more than I did. Overall, I thought the novel was pretty solid.
One part of this story that I thought was a little strange was the characters' initial reactions to Josh losing his leg. I don't doubt that losing a limb would be a traumatic and difficult event to go through, but the way characters reacted to it seemed overly dramatic. When Skylar first sees Josh's prosthetic, one of her first thoughts is, "It was the sickest thing I'd ever seen, this man-boy whose whole life was screwed." I could be way off base here, because I have no first-hand experience with an injury like this, but that kind of response feels off. Is that what people actually assume with they see someone with a prosthetic? That their life is ruined? I honestly don't think I would react this way, and it feels unkind to do so. People lose limbs for all kinds of reasons and still live normal lives, right? This kept consistently happening throughout the first half of the story too. People were obsessed with Josh's missing leg. They couldn't look away. They felt crippling amounts of pity for him. It was as if he might as well be dead because his life basically over. It just didn't feel authentic to me. This eases up somewhat as the story goes on, but I think Demetrios could have handled this aspect better.
Another small thing that bugged me about this novel was the casual homophobia. Characters consistently referred to things as being "gay" in a derogatory way, and the f-slur was used in a joking manner. While Skylar's character would (very) gently push back against this language, it was clear that most of the characters didn't see anything wrong with speaking this way. This book came out in 2015. We knew better by then. Even if Demetrios was trying to accurately depict how teenagers speak in very rural towns, I don't think this is the kind of realism it is important to preserve if it has nothing to do with the plot of the book. It distracted me from what elements of the story I was meant to be focusing on.
So ultimately, I enjoyed I'll Meet You There, but I don't feel the same reverence for it that a lot of reviewers have. I think that Demetrios made some important points about the struggles that soldiers go through, and she did a good job of weaving those points into an engaging young adult contemporary read. I won't remember this as a special favorite of mine, but it was pretty good. I'm glad that I finally checked it out, even if it didn't quite live up to all the hype for me.
Challenge Tally
22 in 2022: 5/22
Total Books Read in 2022: 22
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