After reading Boys Like You by Juliana Stone, I was looking forward to reading Some Kind of Normal. Each of these books can be read as a standalone, but you do get more of Trevor's back story if you read Boys Like You first. I thought that this was a short and sweet YA read, and I enjoyed it.
Trevor Lewis had it all until one night changed everything. After having a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from an accident, he was left in a coma for months. In order to graduate he has to pass a history test, and with his brain malfunctioning at times he needs a tutor. So when he finds out that he has to spend the summer being tutored by the good girl and pastor's daughter Everly Jenkins, he is anything but excited. But the more time they spend together, the more Trevor begins to realize that Everly's life isn't as perfect as he thought it was. As they grow closer together, they both find themselves finding comfort in the last place they expected.
I liked Trevor and Everly. I thought that they were really great together and though they were really different, they understood one another. Trevor was struggling with finding his place after experiencing something really horrible. Everything he had known and planned on was suddenly taken from him, and he had no idea if he would be able to get it back. But Everly helped him to realize that he needed to work hard and go after what he wanted. She liked him for who he was in the present and not who he had been before the accident. Everly was great, I liked that she was a good girl but that she wasn't uptight or snobby. People had made assumptions about her, but she wasn't anything like most of them saw her. I liked that she didn't judge others, and she was always supportive of those she cared about.
Overall, this was a sweet YA book and I liked it. I did find myself rolling my eyes at times with both Trevor and Everly and they handled things poorly on more than one occasion. But these were young kids just getting out of high school and I think a lot of it was just their age. I will also say that while I did like how things were at the ending, I also felt like it wasn't fully satisfying. I wanted a bit more and I was hoping to see a bit into the future. While I like the YA genre, I think that is my biggest complaint about it. I don't expect every story to end with a marriage or engagement or fully tied up conclusion, I do like to see a bit into the future after all the dust has sort of settled. There was a lot going on in this book with Everly's family as well as with her and Trevor, and it would have been nice to see a bit more of how things played out. If you are a fan of YA books though, I think you will find these books enjoyable. They are great for a quick and light read that also touch on some deeper subjects. I thought that Juliana Stone handled some tough things really well, and I was glad that she was able to show that being different doesn't have to be a bad thing.
**ARC Provided by Publisher**
I liked this one too. And I agree that many times YA books feel open-ended b/c of the age of the characters.
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