Something Like Normal ~ Trish Doller review #repost [@bloomsburykids @TrishDoller]

Something Like Normal
Bloomsbury USA Children's
June 19, 2012
224 pages
add to Goodreads/Buy from Book Depository/or Amazon

When nineteen-year-old Travis Stephenson returns home on leave from Afghanistan, it's not all a balloons and music - if even that is what his mom had to welcome him home with. After the happy welcome, Travis faces a much different reality: his parents' marriage is falling apart, his brother has pilfered his girlfriend and taken over his car and Travis keeps seeing his best friend everywhere. Only problem is Charlie died in Afghanistan.

It isn't until Travis meets - re-meets, really - Harper Grey in a bar, a girl that he has a sorted past with that things begin to look like they might be able to turn around for him. As he and Harper spend more time together, Travis seems able to deal with both his family problems and his own - and not just wait it out until he's back at base or in Afghanistan where he, oddly enough, seemed to feel more at home.

Maybe with Harper he won't be able get back to normal, but something like it just might do.


Something Like Normal is a brilliant, fantastic debut with a lead character like one I doubt you've ever read before and like one I doubt you'll ever read again.

I spent the beginning of the book trying to figure out who it was Travis reminded me of - which character. I went through every remotely military character from books, TV, movies and came up with nothing. I thought about male main characters or narrators and still came up with nothing. Know why? He doesn't remind me of anyone.


Continue reading . . .

The Devil You Know ~ Trish Doller (earc) review [@TrishDoller @bloomsburykids]

The Devil You Know
Bloomsbury USA Children's
June 2, 2015
256 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon

Eighteen-year-old Arcadia wants adventure. Living in a tiny Florida town with her dad and four-year-old brother, Cadie spends most of her time working, going to school, and taking care of her family. So when she meets two handsome cousins at a campfire party, she finally has a chance for fun. They invite her and friend to join them on a road trip, and it's just the risk she's been craving-the opportunity to escape. But what starts out as a fun, sexy journey quickly becomes dangerous when she discovers that one of them is not at all who he claims to be. One of them has deadly intentions.

A road trip fling turns terrifying in this contemporary story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

The Devil You Know unfolds in a great way. It isn't stated - in the summary, through POV switches or anything else - what the danger is. Or from whom. Still, the story s permeated by a sense of unease.

Readers are left to question whether some of Cadie's decisions seem unwise and make them anxious because they actually are not smart choices or because of a sense of foreboding.

You will, without a doubt, feel the tension and alarm as Cadie's story, their road trip progresses, but also some of what Cadie feels. Though she has doubts, she wants this escape, wants an adventure - and wants him. It isn't how Cadie normally operates, on most any level, but she wants to be different.

We get a glimpse into Cadie's life at home, with her brother and father, learn about what the past few years have been like for her (socially, at school, at home). Knowing some of who she is, along with who she wishes to be and the struggle she's facing connect readers with her character. It helps make her decisions - stress inducing though some may be - understandable. You can also forgive some of them because she's not making them out of some reckless disregard for logic and safety.

She's the normally responsible one, who doesn't leave High Springs and spends her time caring for her little brother so you want this first-time adventure, this bit of carefree fun to be just that, carefree and fun. But thanks to Doller's writing and some hints (and red herrings, too) you know, somehow, it will be quite the opposite.

When I read books where the story is comparable to a (well done, good) horror movie, this is exactly what i want them to be.






parts of this song were in my head while I was reading, so I thought I'd share it:




digital copy received for review from publisher via NetGalley

Something Like Normal ~ Trish Doller (eARC) review

Something Like Normal
Bloomsbury USA Children's
June 19, 2012
224 pages
add to Goodreads/Buy from TBD/or Amazon

When nineteen-year-old Travis Stephenson returns home on leave from Afghanistan, it's not all a balloons and music - if even that is what his mom had to welcome him home with. After the happy welcome, Travis faces a much different reality: his parents' marriage is falling apart, his brother has pilfered his girlfriend and taken over his car and Travis keeps seeing his best friend everywhere. Only problem is Charlie died in Afghanistan.

It isn't until Travis meets - re-meets, really - Harper Grey in a bar, a girl that he has a sorted past with that things begin to look like they might be able to turn around for him. As he and Harper spend more time together, Travis seems able to deal with both his family problems and his own - and not just wait it out until he's back at base or in Afghanistan where he, oddly enough, seemed to feel more at home.

Maybe with Harper he won't be able get back to normal, but something like it just might do.


Something Like Normal is a brilliant, fantastic debut with a lead character like one I doubt you've ever read before and like one I doubt you'll ever read again.

I spent the beginning of the book trying to figure out who it was Travis reminded me of - which character. I went through every remotely military character from books, TV, movies and came up with nothing. I thought about male main characters or narrators and still came up with nothing. Know why? He doesn't remind me of anyone.

I thought he did because Trish Doller has drawn him so well, flesh her character out so full that even after just a little bit of the story, I felt like I knew Travis. (Which, in turn, led me to thinking he reminded me of someone else.) He is a character that feels so real, so quickly that it's hard to believe you just 'met' him a few pages or chapters ago.

The relationship between Harper and Travis is fantastic. It's pretty much perfect in that it's not perfect. They have their flaws and Travis does not become healed and whole just because of Harper's existence and she (I love her for this) is also pretty tough herself and doesn't forget their past just because. Right from the beginning they're pretty adorable.

The military aspects of Something Like Normal all seem to be on point (and based on the acknowledgments I'd say they are) and add greatly to the story. Not only are they part of what makes - and keeps - Travis seeming so real, it's something that makes this novel both incredibly relevant and important. Aside from being just an immensely enjoyable book, I applaud Trish Doller for the subject matter as well.

Please do go read this book, it's fantabulous (see, I held out on that word until now because it doesn't quite fit with the book, per se, but does fit with my opinion of it). It is a 9 and not a 10 only because I might have liked to see a little bit more on some of the secondary characters or towards the end.


Rating: 9/10*

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for my e-galley of this title 


*bonus points were only given in my head for mentioning the place I live . . . I'm weird like that