Blog Tour: Places No One Knows by Brenna Yovanoff

Jun 24

Written By Kim

Places No One Knows is romantic, edgy, raw and dreamy. Brenna Yovanoff is known for her distinctive writing style. Her novels are often infused with a mix of lyrical prose and dark supernatural touches.

Summary

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.

Book Details

Places No One Knows
By Brenna Yovanoff
On Sale Date: May 17, 2016
Young Adult Fiction, Magical Realism
Delacorte Press, 384 pages
Source: Publisher
My Rating: 4.5 Stars

My Review

With her latest novel, Places No One Knows, Yovanoff writes a story of two refreshingly flawed teens learning to navigate the pressures of high school, family, friends, and romance.

Edgy and sophisticated, Places No One Knows held me captivated with its unconventional romance and realistic teen issues, eliciting from me so many emotions. I don't often read contemporary YA and for Yovanoff to manage to keep me reading for one sitting only - is a testament to her writing skills.

The setting is your typical contemporary high school - with a touch of magical realism thrown into the mix. The plot is simple in context, allowing the characters to really drive the story. The story is told through alternating, first-person viewpoints of Waverly and Marshall as each night Waverly finds herself visiting Marshal through dreams, giving the story a surreal and dreamy cast, softening the rough edges.

What makes Places No One Knows such a compelling story is the strong characterization in it. Waverly and Marshall will win you over through their very flaws. Waverly is brilliant but emotionally repressed and suffers from insomnia from the pressure of being an overachiever. Marshall is equally smart, yet finds solace in booze and worse as the frayed and disintegrating edges of his family life fall apart around him.

Yovanoff writes a very real picture of teens. I loved how Waverly and Marshall, two complete opposites, slowly reveal themselves through these dream visits. What happens after they wake up and face each other in real life with friends and family is where the beauty of this story really is.

Beautifully written, Places No One Knows at heart is a love story filled with true emotions. Recommended to YA readers who enjoy character driven stories - contemporary with a dash magic.