Places No One Know by Brenna Yovanoff
Reviewed by Jessica, gr. 9
Rating: 4/5
Content Warning: Adult activity, substance use
Plot Summary: Waverly doesn't sleep, so she runs until the sun rises. Then, she drifts through the day within the lies about her that people want to see before she runs underneath the moon again. When one night of dreaming leads to an unnatural communication with Marshall, a guy who's given up on life already, Waverly can't stop herself from going back to him each night afterwards. He makes her want to be vulnerable and she makes him want to improve himself. But Marshall doesn't fit into Waverly's life, with the way she conceals herself to put up with everything else. Is she willing to disrupt that perfect image of herself, all for some guy who she can only really talk to in her dreams?
There are tons of books with a type of writing that just makes the story feel dead. Not like, "it's so boring, I want to die," but more like, "it's so oddly peaceful that the energy of life is sucked out." Despite how I typically like these stories less because of how numb they make me afterwards, I actually didn't mind the dead narrative here. Even though they were basically expressionless zombies, looking at life as though it were a concept they were dissociated with, there was still emotion and sentiment coming from the scenes where they got to see each other through Waverly's dreams, which prevented the story from being too depressing for the reader.
While it might seem like it, this isn't one of those cheesy romance stories. There's more depth within the characters that allows a story to exist outside of their romance, which I personally feel makes it better because then it's more realistic. Waverly's an insomniac who isn't allowed to be herself around her supposed best friend, and Marshall's an academic failure trying to escape how broken his family is. Their personal lives alone are enough to make a good story with their own character developments, so the romance was basically the cherry on top, flirtatious and heartwarming and just utterly beautiful.
There wasn't much thrill or excitement going on in this novel, but I'd still recommend it because the writing was great. However, there was a lot of complex vocabulary being used by Waverly to show how smart she was, so I was constantly searching up certain words I couldn't figure out. The story also had some explicit details, so I'd say this should only be read by those 13 or higher.