Yearly Archives:: 2016

I received this book for free from Delacorte Press in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

For fans of Lauren Oliver and E. Lockhart, here is a dreamy love story set in the dark halls of contemporary high school, from New York Times bestselling author Brenna Yovanoff.

Waverly Camdenmar spends her nights running until she can’t even think. Then the sun comes up, life goes on, and Waverly goes back to her perfectly hateful best friend, her perfectly dull classes, and the tiny, nagging suspicion that there’s more to life than student council and GPAs.

Marshall Holt is a loser. He drinks on school nights and gets stoned in the park. He is at risk of not graduating, he does not care, he is no one. He is not even close to being in Waverly’s world.

But then one night Waverly falls asleep and dreams herself into Marshall’s bedroom—and when the sun comes up, nothing in her life can ever be the same. In Waverly’s dreams, the rules have changed. But in her days, she’ll have to decide if it’s worth losing everything for a boy who barely exists.

Today I am taking part in the blog tour for Places No One Knows. I have my review below for you.

This was one of those books that I wasn’t really sure what to think of. I liked the idea of her dreaming herself into somewhere else, but it was a bit weird and it’s not like she has some special power or anything. And the characters didn’t do a whole lot for me. There were a few that I liked enough, but most of them irritated me. I thought that Waverly was a bit melodramatic and very shallow. I suppose when you have a best friend like hers it’s kind of hard not to be though. I guess I had a hard time really connecting with all of it, especially the characters.

Before going into the main characters like I usually do, I am going to talk a bit about the story itself. Waverly is really smart, but she’s not the greatest socially. Good thing her best friend is. In fact, together they pretty much planned how to become the top of the social latter and be the most awesome ever. Unfortunately, Waverly doesn’t really care about those things, but she thinks she has to. She needs to be perfect. If she’s not she is judged for it. Mostly by her BFF. Then there’s the whole romance thing which was just a bit odd. I get that it was supposed to be sweet and that people learned things along the way, but it just didn’t do it for me.

Waverly doesn’t sleep. She’s always had trouble apparently. She also isn’t quite like other people. She doesn’t understand things the way others do. She doesn’t really have emotions much, but not in a sociopathic way. She’s a people pleaser. She does what she needs to so she can be little miss perfect, but that’s not who she really wants to be. She decides to try some methods for sleeping, and she finds an old candle in a drawer and that is how she somehow transports to Marshall. She of course ends up falling for him, but since she’s miss perfect and popular, she can’t actually be with him except for when she dreams herself to him. It’s real for them somehow, but yet no one else can see her. That was a point of confusion for me. Anyways, I didn’t really like her. She was almost like a robot to me. She didn’t have much personality.

Marshall is considered a loser. He is quiet and keeps to himself. He seems like he doesn’t give a shit at school and comes across as dumb. In reality, he’s got a lot of issues going on at home. A broken family with more stress than he can handle. He gets high and drinks constantly because he wants to escape from it all. He knows it’s not the answer, but it makes him feel better when he can’t really feel at all. He’s also had a huge crush on Waverly forever so when she starts showing up where he is all the time, he thinks he’s just too drunk, or high, or whatever. I liked that he was brave enough to tell her that it’s not enough for him to only have her when she goes to him at night. Underneath everything that people see, he’s a great guy. I actually really liked him. He was about the only one in the entire book I did like.

I could go into the build up to them falling for each other, but I won’t. I thought the whole dream transporting thing or whatever it was was not quite explained well. I mean, if she was really somehow going there, then why was it only Marshall that could see her? What was so special about that random candle and why couldn’t any other candle work? And also, how could Waverly be friends with such a horrible girl. Oh, I did forget, I liked the odd girl too. I can’t remember her name now, but her and Waverly become friends despite her BFF not really wanting it to happen. She was the reason why Waverly actually started to realize how much of a tool she is being. This book wasn’t horrible. I did want to read it all the way through and see how things ended instead of just giving up on it. I didn’t love it and I found a lot of things that bothered me about it, but it was okay for me. I think there will be plenty of people who really enjoy it.

3 Hot Espressos