Book Review
Title: The Places I’ve Cried in Public
Author: Holly Bourne
Genre: YA/Contemporary
Rating: DNF
Review: I have read a couple of Holly Bourne books when I first started blogging as they were quite popular but since then I have figured out contemporary books, especially YA contemporary books aren’t my thing as most of my readers will know. I do read them occasionally, but they are usually hit or miss for me but the premise of The Places I’ve Cried in Public was intriguing for me. We are introduced to Amelie who is broken-hearted after breaking up with Reese and in her confusion trying to sort out her emotions she returns to a location where he made her cry, a bench by the railway bridge. While Amelie is at the bench, we get a flashback to when she moved home and had to start at a new college, leaving behind her friends and the boy she was in love with, although she never told him. The first time Amelie cried in public actually has nothing to do with Reese, it is because she left behind her boyfriend Alfie in Yorkshire when she moved to Sheffield and wants nothing more than to be back with him but she has to wait two years when they are both heading to Manchester University. The second time was in the college refectory, during the college talent show and it is here she meets Reese for the first time as she is putting her guitar away waiting for her slot. Reese goes on with his band before her and she can feel the magnetic aura around him but when he helps her down from the stage after claiming first place and he compliments her; she is overwhelmed especially since she hasn’t heard from Alfie in a week. In the present, we get snippets of Amelie’s current life where Reese is with someone else and she is extremely jealous of this new girl and mulls over the lies that Reese told her. She also misses the red flag from Hannah, who tells her that Reese isn’t a nice person.
As we approach the ¼ mark of the novel, I was beginning to really dislike Reese and we don’t even know him that well but the hard coming onto Amelie and the casually ownership he uses on her made me really uncomfortable but it seems that Amelie hasn’t learnt her lesson because in the present is she watching Reese with his new girlfriend and is so jealous and angry but when Reese says he misses her and that he might have made the biggest mistake of his life, she is contemplating taking him back but he disappears again. We learn the first night Reese walked her home she felt some sort of chemistry with him and would have let him kiss her if he had made the move. She and Alfie broke up before she moved but they still plan to be together again, and I am beginning to wonder what happened that made her forget this boy she claimed to love. The number thirty-seven bus stop is the next place Amelie cried after her first date with Reese even though he isn’t aware of it. Amelie is also helping with the college project regarding memory maps and hers is on all the places Reese made her cry in the hopes it will bring her some closure. I also want to see what happens with her friendship with Hannah and Jack as they seem pretty close in the past but they aren’t friends in the present and it might be because Hannah warned Amelie that Reese wasn’t a nice person and she continues to ignore the warning signs and her own rational thoughts when Reese is around.
I had to DNF this at 25% because it was hurting to read it, like physically hurt. Not because of the content but because of how insanely boring it was. All I kept thinking was yes you got your heart broken by an asshole, we all have, move on, get over it. I also didn’t like either of Amelie’s clashing voices , in the past she is so doe eyed and naïve, it is like some hit her repeatedly with the stupid stick and in the present she has the bitterness and venom of someone far older and it didn’t suit her at all. In terms of characters, I like Alfie but we don’t see much of his and it is always through Amelie warped gaze, I hated Reese and didn’t see the appeal in him at all but the final straw for me was she agreed to be Reese’s girlfriend and had this huge snogging session with him without talking to Alfie. I know they aren’t together but she should have had the decency to say to him, “look I’ve met someone I like him, I want to see where things go” not for him to find out much later when she has fully established a relationship with Reese. The writing was also an issue for me, the constantly jumping back and forth was fine but the way the past and present seemed to blend together so there was nothing distinct about the time periods switching was really confusing. I also didn’t like the fact the trademark humour Holly Bourne writes was missing, it is one of the few things I like about her writing. Overall, I knew The Places I’ve Cried in Public wasn’t something I was going to enjoy and reading the first ¼ of this book just proved it for me.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk
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