Review: Something Like Normal by Trish Doller

Title: Something Like Normal
Author: Trish Doller
Series: Stand Alone
Published By: Bloomsbury USA (June 19, 2012)
Source: ARC Provided by the Publisher
Genre: YA Realistic Ficiton
My Rating: 4 Stars

Goodreads Description:
 When Travis returns home from a stint in Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother’s stolen his girlfriend and his car, and he’s haunted by nightmares of his best friend’s death. It’s not until Travis runs into Harper, a girl he’s had a rocky relationship with since middle school, that life actually starts looking up. And as he and Harper see more of each other, he begins to pick his way through the minefield of family problems and post-traumatic stress to the possibility of a life that might resemble normal again. Travis’s dry sense of humor, and incredible sense of honor, make him an irresistible and eminently lovable hero.

My Review:

  It is no secret that I enjoy a good book from a male point of view, which I think is why this book first appealed to me.

Doller did an amazing job creating Travis. He is a character that is a little gritty and damaged and just real. You can see how he struggles with what the war and his past has done to him. He is a tough guy with a heart of gold just trying to make it in a world that he doesn’t completely understand. Trying to fit in when he doesn't even know what or where that is.

I really love novels like this one, the ones that make you think and feel and that seem so real they make you want to give the characters a great big hug and help them through it. The ones that you can't stop thinking about long after their story has ended and you have set the book down.

Doller has managed to do all of that while still talking about a very real very heartbreaking subject about the effects of war and death on our soldiers and how they manage to carry on once they are done serving and go back home.

How they deal with friends and family and the nightmares and horrors of what happened.

I really enjoyed this book and all of the characters. Harper too, felt like someone that I would know and hang out with, someone who would be a friend.

I enjoyed being able to see Travis' Marine buddies as well as meet his family and learn about Charley's family a little bit too, that was a nice touch to the story.

Truly this story will have an emotional impact on your life and be one that will move you and make you care about the characters and situations they had to face because you know things like this do happen, every day, to truly wonderful people.