{Review} Some Kind of Normal by Juliana Stone

Posted by Donna
Release Date: May 5th, 2015
Finished Date: April 5th, 2015

Publishers: Sourcebooks Fire
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Source: For Review
Format: eARC

Pages: 304

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

What is Normal?

For Trevor normal was fast guitar licks, catching game-winning passes and partying all night. Until a car accident leaves Trevor with no band, no teammates and no chance of graduating. It's kinda hard to ace your finals when you've been in a coma. The last thing he needs is stuck-up Everly Jenkins as his new tutor those beautiful blue eyes catching every last flaw.

For Everly normal was a perfect family around the dinner table, playing piano at Sunday service and sunning by the pool. Until she discovers her whole life is a lie. Now the perfect pastor's daughter is hiding a life-changing secret, one that is slowly tearing her family apart. And spending the summer with notorious flirt Trevor Lewis means her darkest secret could be exposed.

This achingly beautiful story about two damaged teens struggling through pain and loss to redefine who they are--to their family, to themselves, and to each other--is sure to melt your heart.

The Review: Some Kind of Normal follows Trevor who as of last year was a guitar player, a football player and loved to party, that is until he involved in a car accident that leaves him in pretty bad shape after being in a coma. Now, a year later, Trevor’s fallen behind that much he’s probably not going to graduate unless he gets help. And help is in the form of Everly who seems to hate Trevor. 

Everly has always had the perfect family until something changes and now it only appears that everything is normal. Her home life pretty much sucks because of the secrets her father is keeping and it’s killing everything she loved about her family. She’ll do anything to get out of the house even if that means helping Trevor. 

Can these two lost characters repair the damage that is done in their lives and start looking forward to new things or will their current situations keep dragging them down? 

I loved Juliana Stone’s Boys Like You when I read it last year. I can remember flying through the book because I simply couldn’t put it down. And so when I heard she was writing more but this time from Trevor who was a secondary character in Boys Like You, I was immediately excited. But I’m not sure what happened this time around, I really enjoyed Some Kind of Normal but I didn’t feel as though I connected to Trevor and Everly’s story as much as I did Nathan and Monroe’s. I just didn’t enjoy it as much. 

Trevor was a good lead and I felt sorry for him with the issues he was dealing with from the accident. It’s left his dreams uncertain if he will ever get to fulfil them and I really did sympathise with him, but, I wish he took more action rather than feeling sorry for himself. It’s only when he’s with Everly that I really saw him start to change. But even near the end, he didn’t go after what he wanted until the very last minute. And Everly, I liked her and I enjoyed getting to know her seems as she was a new character to the series all together. 

In all, I may not have enjoyed Some Kind of Normal as much as I did Boys Like You but I still believe this is a series worth reading and I will be looking out for more YA books by this author.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.