The Somewhere I See You Again
Seventeen-year-old Hannah and her best friend, Stacy, have grown up poor in an unnamed town in eastern Canada. So poor, in fact, that in the summer of 1971, Stacy’s mom is about to marry a creepy man so she can make rent. When Hannah hatches a plan to extort Stacy’s wealthy ex-boyfriend for the money Stacy’s mother needs, the pair embarks on a cross-country hitchhiking trip to Vancouver to his new house. Along the way, Hannah meets and falls in love with a handsome Vietnam draft-dodger from West Virginia.
Billed as an historical romance, this novel has a hard time deciding on a purpose. The first half of the book follows Hannah’s and Stacy’s quest to save Stacy’s mother from a cruel fate, but the plot shifts when Hannah meets the draft dodger halfway through. A true romance would have the love story front and center from page one. Hannah is also a difficult character to like. While “likeability” isn’t a requirement in a protagonist (see also: Scarlett O’Hara), she lacks a redeeming quality. Throughout the novel, she lies to and manipulates everyone, including and especially Stacy, for her own ends.
The time is ripe for more young-adult fiction set during the Vietnam era, but readers would be best served looking elsewhere.
