Name: Boys Like You
ISBN: 9781492603290

Juliana Stone

Spending the summer in her grandmother's sleepy Louisiana hometown, 16-year-old Monroe Blackwell reflects on the girl she used to be before her brother's death and falls in love with Nathan, a teen whose best friend is in a coma after a devastating accident.

Boys Like You

When Monroe Blackwell, who is spending the summer at her grandmother's Louisiana bed-and-breakfast, meets Nathan Everets, who has a court-appointed job there, they share, and begin to recover from, their respective feelings of loss and guilt.

Ivy X

The first few chapters were pretty good. Then it started to bore me. It felt like one of those broken-soul novels. It felt too cliche as I watched Monroe and Nate find comfort in one another. There was nothing about this book that made it stand out and it was pretty disappointing for me.

Lisa ✩ @lifeinlit

This story was so much more than I expected. Monroe is battling with overwhelming guilt revolving around an incident that happened in the immediate past. Though at first we don’t know what happened, we are given little hints and slight insight into what the tragedy was. She meets Nathan, who at first comes off as overly confident and somewhat annoying, but she soon warms up to him and realizes that he too is suffering from some guilt surrounding an incident himself. They soon find they have a strong bond, both suffering from unbearable guilt. It wasn’t simply about the romance between the two, but so much more than that. Both broken and flawed, Monroe & Nate must learn to move on from their own shady pasts and find out how to live life again.

The alternating points of view was an added bonus. It was great getting to see Monroe’s side of things, as well as Nate’s. The two sides gave us much more of the story, bringing on all the feels along with it. And this story definitely had all the feels. I was laughing, then a chapter later sobbing. There were times when such anger was pouring out of me, only to be overtaken by grief a second later. And before I knew it, I was giggling again. All over the spectrum as far as emotions go.

The romance between Monroe and Nate was such an innocent and sweet one. They were both fighting the connection, yet acknowledging it was present. Both had issues they were battling, making them question themselves, the decisions they made in the past, and their current worth. This was the almost torturous slow burn type of romance I love so much in books with flawed characters. Where they’re so hesitant to love and give themselves. They constantly pull away and feel the need to flee. Yet it’s inevitable that they will have to give in to the feelings at some point. One of my very favorite types of romances.

This was a powerful story about finding answers, accepting prior mistakes, forgiving others as well as forgiving yourself, and looking forward to bettering your life in the future. Strong family bonds were present, which was a nice change from so many books these days. And as always, I love seeing friendship as a strong story element. This is my first Juliana Stone book, but I’ll definitely be looking forward to reading more of her work in the future.

(Thanks to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for the review copy!)


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Boys Like You

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