Review: Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

Tags: YA, new adult, contemporary, Marines, war, romance, family, PTSD, grief

Summary

Travis Stephenson is back home for a month after a year of active duty as a Marine in Afghanistan. Still suffering in the wake of his best friend’s death, Travis is in no mood to play mind games with his bastard father, needy mother, competitive brother, and manipulative ex-girlfriend. But amongst all the dread of returning home comes the unexpected surprise of falling for Harper, she of the girl-next-door type.

Review

SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL is not a book about the psychological effects of war so much as the PTSD-suffering Marine protagonist is a thinly veiled mask over a fairly basic contemporary YA story about one guy’s emotional growth. It was decent and a quick read, but didn’t end up blowing me away with emotional catharsis, as other pre-release praise seemed to suggest.

I quite liked Travis, the protagonist. It was nice and refreshing to get inside the head of a young man as he dealt with relationship issues, and I commend Trish Doller for her nuanced but still honest portrayal of a male Marine’s mind. Yes, he thinks about girls and sex; yes, he would rather not deal with females’ “emotional vomit;” yes, he likes to talk crap with his Marine buddies. But he’s also a genuinely good guy, being understanding and supportive of the emotionally vulnerable women in his life, and you know he would not hesitate to give his life for his friends. Not all of Travis’ actions and decisions are admirable, but they absolutely make sense, and his good intentions made me care for him and think twice about other college-age guys who act like boneheads.

Unfortunately, I almost felt like SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL was not long enough to contain the emotional and relationship growth that Travis undergoes. In the interest of keeping itself at a manageable length, SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL foregoes, I think, some of the situational and character depth that the scenarios in the story had potential for. Travis’ dad comes across as a one-dimensional bastard, when in real life even the bastards usually have some sort of reason for why they act the way they do. In addition, Travis’ budding relationship with Harper felt rushed: one minute he’s telling us about their shaky past, the next she’s falling for him. It’s not often that I say a book should’ve been longer, but I think it wouldn’t have hurt for SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL to have been 50 or even 100 pages longer, so that the subtler elements of relationship issues could have had the space to breathe.

SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL was, for me, a decent but not mind-blowing read. For a gentle and somewhat predictable YA contemporary, this will be a good enough choice. For a more intimate and thorough look into the mindset of a soldier, however, I’d go elsewhere afterwards.

Cover discussion: I like the text treatment slightly better than I did an earlier version, but I still think the stock photo is moronic and makes it look like every other YA contemporary out there. Is that what we're really supposed to go for, hrm?

Bloomsbury / June 19, 2012 / Hardcover / 225pp. / $16.99

e-galley received for review from publisher and NetGalley.

Why New Adult Lit is the Next Cool Thing

Awesome bloggers Nic from Irresistible Reads and Linds from Bibliophile Brouhaha have teamed together to host Kirsty Eagar Week, in which a bunch of bloggers, of which I am one, are posting to promote this lovely Australian author. Check out Nic's introductory post here! I had the fortune of reading Raw Blue a while ago and it was stunning, so I'm honored to be a part of this week. My post is on older YA--or, as it has been referred to, New Adult Literature.

"Why New Adult Lit is the Next Cool Thing"

Recently I reread Anne of the Island, the third book in L. M. Montgomery's eternally lovely series. This is the book in which WONDERFULLY ROMANTIC THINGS happen because hey, guess what? Anne is old enough to go through those emotions. She finally realizes that she's actually in love with her best friend, Gilbert Blythe, and things that we were desperately waiting for three books to happen finally happen. Life is well in Anne's (and my) romantic dreams.

Anne of the Island spans Anne's college years, where she blossoms from a poised but still emotionally young 18-year-old to a 22-year-old woman with a much better understanding of her emotions. The entire Anne series is generally considered children's literature, but, age-wise, Anne in this installment fits neatly into the infant literary sub-genre some are calling "New Adult Literature."

It’s not quite an officially recognized genre just yet, always faltering in shelf placement between the YA or adult sections, but I think it’s only a matter of time before New Adult Lit takes off. Just like teens benefit emotionally, mentally, and intellectually from having their own literary genre, so can real-life young adults benefit from books that feature people their own age, who are going through what they are going through. I am a recent college graduate and distinctly feel that my reading tastes have shifted from primarily YA to…what? Thus far, there is no “other” where I feel like I belong. I want stories of growth and discovery in the college years. I want adventures of recent college graduates, stressing out over the instability of the job market or being overwhelmed by the newness of their first fulltime job. Much like how, 40 years ago, teens demanded literature that represented what life was really like for them, I want the same for my newly minted “young adult” status!

Pragmatically, new adult lit is a definite potential market. Many of the age groups we now take for granted, such as toddlers, were actually coined by companies to launch a new line of products for their new age groups as recently as 50 years ago. Why couldn’t, or shouldn’t, the same apply to book publishing? Ten years ago you would be hard-pressed to find a YA section in a bookstore. Now, a bookstore without a YA section feels almost out-of-date. As the generation of teenagers who coincided with this most recent explosion of YA literature graduate high school and enter college, what will there be for them to read? A separate bookstore section for New Adult Lit might be difficult to imagine now, but I predict that by 2020 there will be more than a handful of stores featuring a distinct shelf for a burgeoning genre nestled between YA and adult fiction.

Hopefully, within the next few years, authors will not be asked to lower the ages of their protagonists to better fit the established YA lit parameters. Publishers will take the leap and tap into the overdue potential of stories featuring college-age characters and the unique arena of freedom and fear that coexist during these years. Readers are already clamoring for stories set in college—and, as we know, the customer is always (okay: mostly, usually) right.

So why shouldn't there be a New Adult genre?

---

Be sure to check out the Kirsty Eagar Week schedule on Nic's blog to hear what other bloggers have to say about Kirsty, Kirsty's books, older YA lit, and more. There are also giveaways, so go go go! :)

(Oh, and also, pick up Kirsty's books if you have the opportunity. You won't be sorry.)