Just Visiting

by Dahlia Adler

[Angie]

I love friendship and I love college. Just Visiting is about friendship and college, among other important things. Reagan and Victoria are best friends who just want to get out of their small town. It's their senior year, so the girls decide to visit colleges around their state to figure out where they want to go. They may not know what they want to study, but they do know that they need to get away and that they want to do it together. But all of this talk about the future makes them realize that they don't even know the other's past. Can you be best friends without knowing everything?

Just Visiting was really great. I loved that it was so focused on college and college alternatives. Yes, the girls visit several college campuses, but travel, the military, and the Peace Corps are also mentioned as other options. It's totally okay to not know which path you want to take! That's Victoria. Reagan is dead set on college, although she doesn't know where. Meanwhile Victoria is following Reagan's lead, until she starts finding her own way. I also loved that the author spent quite a bit of time talking about financial aid. Reagan is poor, so she has to think about tuition, books, scholarships, loans, savings, and even just paying the application fees. This is soooo important! I hate when teens think they can't afford college without even looking into the financial aid that is available to them! And community college! It's not talked about as some negative, loser thing to do. It's a totally legit option along side universities.

Reagan also has a secret and I spent the first half of Just Visiting trying really hard to figure it out. I was kinda of right, but not really. It ended up being way more complicated than I could ever imagine, and it's frightening to think that this actually happens. It involves her ex-boyfriend whom she refuses to talk about with Victoria, but when it all comes out....woah. That was super intense and I hadn't read anything like that before. It's certainly not petty teenage drama.

Just Visiting does have some petty teenage drama, because hey, it's about teenagers! Of course, Reagan and Victoria have to meet boys during all of their travels. Most of the romantic focus was on Reagan and Dev, and they totally got my Romance Paranoia going at one point! With good reason! I won't say what happened, but I got super nervous and thought I would end up hating where it was going. Thankfully, the author took this opportunity to discuss another super important topic. Again, one that I hadn't seen tackled in YA before. It's something that all teenage girls (really all women) should know about.

Basically, Just Visiting covers a lot of important, real world issues that teens face. I was very surprised about how informative it was, while also still having a great friendship story at the center. Even though it is mainly about two teens figuring out what to do about college, I do think the themes about finding your passions and pursuing your dreams and goals are totally relatable to everyone though.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.