The Places I've Cried in Public (A BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick): 1

Product Information

Holly Bourne has once again produced a story regarding young adult issues that is at times hard to read, but is emotive and totally honest... The story follows 16 year old Amelie (who is also the narrator of this emotive read) who has recently moved away from all that she knows due to her parents having to relocate. She is not a confident girl, but truly shines when she plays her music, which is how she gets noticed by Reese. Due perhaps to feeling 'the odd girl out', Amelie falls fast and hard for Reese, ignoring some of her gut instincts and friendly advice. He loves her, doesn't he? He told her. If things go wrong it's her fault, because he said so, he only tells her because he loves her so much! He's so romantic and loving, but is he?

But the closer Amelie gets to Reese, the further away from her new friends and family she becomes, and understands less and less about love and relationships, where ‘even after the best night of my life, you still manage to make me cry’. Reese, like a drug, is described as a ‘giant sexy magnet’ and Amelie states that she felt ‘like I was wearing chainmail’. The Chapter names- They are all based on the names of the places or the reasons why she cried and absolutely no idea why, but I loved them. Okay this is a tough one to review. It’s one in the morning and I am tired, but I NEEDED to finish this story. This is something that needs to be told.

About YoungMinds

The thing with this book is, I found it very very difficult to stop reading, I couldn't tell you the last time I read a full book in a day but this was one of them. I took a lot away from this book and some things that were wrote I agreed with (obviously it is very precise to the book) The Places I’ve Cried in Public isn’t a love story, but it’s a book that talks about love, for sure. What you might mistake for love, but isn’t, the all consuming feelings of getting slowly trapped into a relationship and, before it’s too late, before you can or are really managing to listen to your gut, you’re in too deep. I loved the discussions on that, I loved how it opens up an important, important conversation about abuse in relationships, sometimes one that might not seem like it, at first, either.

This book is like the YA version of It Ends with Us- feminist to the bones and written in a much better way and a more believable and real ending.What I know is - this is something really powerful. We all read our love stories where in the end, the hero and heroine get together and have their happy ending. But not all the love stories end that way now, do they? (Add to the fact that I and we read dark romances where unhealthy relationships are advertised.) Crying is a very obvious sign that something isn't going right in your life. You should not ignore tears." I think this book is a very important contemporary novel, but I cannot say I enjoyed reading it. I think I need to say straight off the bat, that the synopsis of this book is quite vague and it makes it sound essentially just like a break up story; but I must say that in my opinion this novel is a very tragic story of a rape and abuse victim coping with PTSD.