Some great news for NORMAL

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller, that is! While you eagerly await the cover reveal of her next novel, Where The Stars Still Shine, people are still heaping praise on Travis and Harper! First, a lovely review from Guys Lit Wire, which includes this:

Harper and Travis, like the characters in Sherman Alexie’s works (another writer who excels at showing us broken characters trying to find “normal”), “keep each other’s secrets.” The tentative, halting building of their relationship drives Doller’s young adult novel, as Travis realizes he cannot find his future until he comes to peace with what he left behind. What he left behind in Florida when he rather cavalierly joined the Marines, and what he left behind in Afghanistan when he returned home on leave. And when Travis is asked by Charlie’s mother to speak at a memorial service, he realizes he cannot put the pieces back together until he is truthful to himself and the others in his life (especially Harper) about how broken he is. As with Hemingway’s “heroes,” we realize that Travis can be stronger in his broken places than he ever was when he was whole. (Something Like Normal would make an excellent ladder to Hemingway’s war novels.)

Hemingway! Woot!

And I couldn’t be more thrilled that The Atlantic Wire named Something Like Normal to their list of the year’s most notable YA and MG novels, calling it the Best Reality Check:

Says Walker, “Just back from a tour in Afghanistan, Travis has to reframe his life with family, friends and a girl he used to know while his experiences in the Middle East play in his mind. Rough moments blend with tender ones to give this story a solid core of angst and healing with no easy fixes.” Rossi calls this book “a nuanced portrayal of a young Marine’s struggle to readjust to life at home after serving in Afghanistan. Honest and beautifully told, I enjoyed every page.”

They also called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, the “Best Not-Dystopian Read,” with a blurb from R.L. Stine.

Double Woot!