Wait for Me by Sara Shepard

Published on November 1, 2022 by Union Square Books

Source: eARC from the publisher for review

Plot Summary for Wait for Me by Sara Shepard

Who is Casey Rhodes? 

Is she a no-nonsense realist or a hopeless romantic? A just-getting-by scholarship student or a sometimes-Cinderella dating the cool, cultured heir to a media empire and New York City’s most eligible? 

At seventeen years old and already in her sophomore year at NYU, Casey sheds disguises effortlessly. It’s how she navigates school and avoids the second-guessing that’s plagued her since she and her boyfriend Marcus got together. 

 

But then Casey starts hearing voices that terrify her so badly she flees to the remote beach town of Avon where she can sort through her thoughts and reset. 

But the voices only get more intense and are now accompanied by visions of places she’s never been and people she’s never met, like Jake who’s lived in Avon his whole life. 

There’s no way Casey could know him, yet she feels an immediate connection. 

And, crazier still: he feels it too. Together they search for answers, finding only questions—about their connection, Avon, Casey’s memories . . . And whose voice is she hearing inside her head?

Review of Wait for Me by Sara Shepard

I have always felt that Sara Shepard's books were strong on concept but less so on execution, but Wait for Me was the opposite.

Sara is one of the OG YA writers of the 2010s, and I am an OG 2010 YA blogger, so it is fitting that I review Wait for Me on a YA blog that has been raised from the dead like a vampire from the 2010s.   

Goodbye, YA Romantics. Hello, YA All Day (I'm a daytime person now. )

But back to Wait for Me. If you are yearning for some old school YA, with a heroine who is not like other girls, a love triangle, and all the paranormal (reincarnation!) romance, grab Wait for Me immediately.

Forget the neglectful (dead?) parents of 2010s YA.  Casey is a genuis who is seventeen but already a college student. NO parents. (Okay, a dead mom.)

Wait for Me took me back to the days of the girls in the dress covers (the ones standing on a cliff with their hair and their dress billowing in the wind). 

To Casey, the awkward main character who inexplicably has two hot guys in love with her. To the paranormal romance.  (I can't think of many reincarnation romances from the old days, but I am SURE there were some. Stay tuned.)

Wait for Me had some good twists, though the villain was so obvious they had "villain" tattooed on their forehead. 

The mental health rep was ... not the most nuanced. 

Thanks for the memories, Wait for Me. It was so fun time traveling back to those days!