Meet the Sky
McCall Hoyle
It all started with the accident. The one that caused Sophie’s dad to walk out of her life. The one that left Sophie’s older sister, Meredith, barely able to walk at all.
With nothing but pain in her past, all Sophie wants is to plan for the future—keep the family business running, get accepted to veterinary school, and protect her mom and sister from another disaster. But when a hurricane forms off the coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks and heads right toward their island, Sophie realizes nature is one thing she can’t control.
After she gets separated from her family during the evacuation, Sophie finds herself trapped on the island with the last person she’d have chosen—the reckless and wild Finn Sanders, who broke her heart freshman year. As they struggle to find safety, Sophie learns that Finn has suffered his own heartbreak; but instead of playing it safe, Finn’s become the kind of guy who goes surfing in the eye of the hurricane. He may be the perfect person to remind Sophie how to embrace life again, but only if their newfound friendship can survive the storm.
Publisher: Blink
Published: September 4th 2018

I had a hard time deciding on a rating for this one, but the longer I read, the more that thread of irritation became more prevalent.
We follow Sophie as she deals with the stress of helping her mother take care of her sister who was disabled in a car accident, the boy who ghosted her at the highschool dance years ago showing back up and the oncoming hurricane threatening to ravage her town.
This was a pretty quick read, so that’s a positive. I also appreciate that the two main characters weren’t survival pros and building fires in the rain with the sticks. It wasn’t really an exciting dash-to-survive kind of story, but I get it and that doesn’t detract any stars from my rating.
But, because we’re following the characters so closely, I would consider this a character based story… and I wasn’t feeling the characters, specifically Finn. Everything with him and Sophie was so black and white; between the two of them, only one was supposed to go through a development of having a different outlook. Live life to the fullest isn’t a bad outlook on life, but when your in the middle of a hurricane and you want to surf? That’s just reckless.
However, I did favor Sophie. As a fellow pessimist, I understood where she was coming from, so Finn’s teasing of her being safe and looking at the negatives rubbed me the wrong was… considering he’s the reason they’re in this mess. Not to say she didn’t make stupid decisions either, because she did, but between the two of them… ¯\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯
Which makes they’re romantic development something else I didn’t really feel. I already wasn’t liking Finn, so being stuck with him for 60% of the book just made me think you could do better. He was to cocky and I think that was supposed to be charming? And I get it- intense situations = intense emotions, but… I wasn’t feeling it.
Family’s a prominent factor in the story, making compromises and putting your needs aside for their needs is something that’s relatable. We don’t spend much time with them, but from what short page time they had, it’s clear they’re close and love each other.
This just… wasn’t what I was expecting. Things weren’t as developed as I’d hoped, the ending was tied in a pretty, nice bow and my feelings are conflicted.
[…] the Sky – McCall Hoyle ✰✰ + review […]
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