places we've never been

Rating: ★★☆
Audience: YA Contemporary Romance
Length: 336 pages
Author: Kasie West
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: May 31st, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A sweet and swoony contemporary Young Adult novel about a cross-country family road trip that puts one girl and her childhood best friend on an unexpected road to romance!

Norah hasn’t seen her childhood best friend, Skyler, in years. When he first moved away, they’d talk all the time, but lately their relationship has been reduced to liking each other’s Instagram posts. That’s why Norah can’t wait for the joint RV road trip their families have planned for the summer.

But when Skyler finally arrives, he seems…like he’d rather be anywhere else. Hurt and confused, Norah reacts in kind. Suddenly, her oldest friendship is on the rocks.

An unexpected summer spent driving across the country leads both Norah and Skyler down new roads and to new discoveries. Before long, they are, once again, seeing each other in a different light. Can their friendship-turned-rivalry turn into something more?

MMM.

I go up and down with Kasie West books (big winners for me are P.S. I Like You and Sunkissed). This unfortunately fell deep in to the miss category.

The whole premise of the book is based off of a silly miscommunication between two friends who moved away from each other. That’s it. That’s the story. OH WAIT, alongside that is a sub plot about a parent choosing to hide information from her children (that, I understood to some degree, but didn’t love the way this went about). Both of these were red flags in my final opinions.

I did like the road trip antics. Those are fun, traveling in massive RV’s, eating by campfire, meet new friends. All good stuff. And there were some cute romance scenes too! Once both Norah and Skyler stopped acting ridiculous it was great. I thought they handled their relationship so much better after, ya know, COMMUNICATING.

We’ll see what the next West story holds.

Overall audience notes: