I'll Meet You There

December 1, 2014
After receiving a full scholarship to a San Francisco college, budding artist Skylar thinks she’s won a ticket out of Creek View, Calif., a town consisting of “a trailer park, a few run-down houses, a couple of business that barely made enough to keep their doors open, and the Paradise Motel,” where she works part-time. Standing on the threshold of a promising future, Skylar confronts forces holding her back: she’s worried about leaving her mother, who has lost her job and started drinking again, and she’s also drawn to Josh, a Marine who has returned to Creek View physically and emotionally damaged. Demetrios (Exquisite Captive) paints a vivid portrait of a teen overburdened with responsibility and confused by conflicting passions. Skylar’s thoughts, interspersed with Josh’s memories of war and his uncertainties about his future, dramatically convey how the two come together before being pulled apart by fear. If the ups and downs of their romance are slightly drawn out, the striking details of small-town life and well-developed supporting characters will keep readers engaged. Ages 14–up. Agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

November 15, 2014
Skylar's post-graduation mission to get out of tiny Creek View, California, is sidetracked by her mom's downward spiral into alcohol abuse and by hot hunk Josh Mitchell's return from a tour in Afghanistan minus a leg. A collage artist intent on getting to San Francisco State, Skylar's home situation is both motivation to go and a ball and chain that keeps her from leaving. Skylar's two besties, Chris and Dylan, are unable to help. Chris is busy hankering after Dylan when he's not focusing on college in Boston in the fall, and Dylan's baby is taking up almost as much of her time as his daddy, Jesse, does. Part-time work at the Paradise Motel believably brings Josh and Skylar together to connect and flirt, observed by their beloved and unbelievably undemanding boss. Ominous moody moments contrast with the happy, soaring-and steamy-times, and of course they are followed by the inevitable, completely devastating low. Demetrios (Something Real, 2014) again focuses on timely issues, interspersing Skylar's account with short chapters in Josh's anguished voice that relive his painful wartime memories. Skylar is almost preternaturally naive, an abstemious virgin surrounded by hard-partying, foulmouthed, slur-slinging classmates all too conscious of their limited futures and all too willing to try to forget it temporarily with bad sex. A heady, page-flipping romance. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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December 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Skylar has planned her escape from Creek View for as long as she can remember. She wants to go to an art college in San Francisco. The teen hopes that nothing will stop her, but when her unstable mother loses her job at Taco Bell, Skylar sees her plans get more distant. Another hurdle to her departure is a growing attraction to a young man she works with at a local motel who has returned to town after losing a leg as a Marine in Afghanistan. Both are searching for their future and are wondering if there is a way to leave their lives but not each other. Sky evades her problems through her paper collage projects, and Josh through whiskey and random hookups. The relationship gives each of them some stability, but goes through more than one rough patch. Teens who know someone who has returned from the service disabled, or who long to escape a small town may identify with the novel, but most may find it cliched and reminiscent of many Lifetime movies; this one with young adults as the protagonists. The characters are likable but somewhat stereotyped and one-dimensional. The alcohol use and Armed Services-level swearing make this more appropriate for high school. Add to collections where teen romances are popular.-Suanne B. Roush, formerly at Osceola High School, Seminole, FL

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Skylar's postgraduation plans are pretty much set in stone: trading in a life in the trailer she shares with her mom in Creek View, where she has spent all of her 18 years, to study art in San Francisco. But when her old coworker Josh, a U.S. Marine, returns from Afghanistan minus not only his leg but also his party-boy ways, Skylar's crystal clear view of the future starts to blur. Over the summer, Skylar grows unexpectedly closer to Josh. She thinks she might even love him, and when her mother loses her job, her future only gets more complicated. Can she really leave behind this place and the people who need her? Demetrios explores a complicated web of issues surrounding her intelligent protagonist in a summer full of changes, and she breathes life into fictional Creek View by populating the novel with eccentric yet familiar characters, from Skylar's closest friends to her boss Marge to Josh's unrelenting flirt of a brother. Demetrios smartly interweaves brief splices of narrative from Josh's point of view, providing a necessary counterpoint that effectively buoys the romance and expands the reader's understanding of Josh's experience in Afghanistan. Part coming-of-age, part romance, and part war story, Demetrios' latest is remarkable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)