Standalone Sunday is a weekly feature created by Megan @ bookslayerReads that features a standalone novel that you loved or would recommend. Be sure to check out her blog and original post by clicking on the above link! 
If Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing separating Skylar from art school is three months of summer…until Skylar’s mother loses her job, and Skylar realizes her dreams may be slipping out of reach.
Josh had a different escape route: the Marines. But after losing his leg in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be.
What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise—a quirky motel off California’s Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and, soon, something deeper.
Compelling and ultimately hopeful, this is a powerful examination of love, loss, and resilience.
-Goodreads Synopsis (x)
I’ll Meet You There is another one I’m pretty sure I’ve recommended a few times on my blog. As far as contemporaries go it’s one of my top favorites. There’s something so realistic about the story and I’ve always felt it deals with the topic of PTSD in a great way. It isn’t one of those novels where romance cures all (though there is a cute romance). And the characters are so relatable. It’s heavily about trying to figure out who you, overcoming hardships and grief, and it has some fantastic friendships. It’s also a book with multiple POVs so you get to experience Skylar and Josh’s story together as well as separate and it really flowed in that aspect because it helps when trying to understand why one of them does something. So, if you’re looking for a powerful and moving contemporary I highly recommend this.
Have you read I’ll Meet You There? Did you like it? If you participate in Standalone Sunday be sure to link me to your post so I can see it. 😊
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.
Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life – and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie’s own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they’re the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can’t collide without the whole wide world exploding.
BookNerdMomo 