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

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All in all, it is a book I recommend. It's important and it has value and it's something everyone needs to be aware off. I can take my journey and my scars and I can use the lessons they gave me to ensure my future path has fewer tears in it. There’s a trail of salt across the country, from the tears that rolled down my cheeks, but it ends here.

If the focus really is on Amelie and Reese’s relationship in this book, I liked the place the secondary characters took in the story. From the caring music teacher to the friendship Amelie develops, destroys and mends with Hannah, I appreciated seeing this very much, as well.It was a rollercoaster of emotions and it was extremely difficult in some places to read what Amelie had to go through. This book really does make you think about certain things when it comes to love. Amelie and Reese are in a relationship and it appears to be the "All Consuming" type of love. There's some very and not so subtle nods to what is happening and the more I read the more I just knew what was going to happen (well part of it) and my heart well and truly broke. As it turns out, they are the result of a radioactive relationship full of thorns and punctured dreams.

Every time I start another Holly Bourne book, I’m scared. I think, “Is this the time? Is this the book where Bourne lets me down, and I have to be disappointed??” And the answer is always no, as it is with The Places I’ve Cried in Public. I read this mostly in private, but otherwise there would have been some public tears, let me tell you. I really appreciated how the author showed the differences between Alfie and Reese, for me it was crystal clear: it was the difference between a loving relationship built on trust with a nice childhood friend and an unloving one where there were so much abuse and pain caused by a manipulative boy.Look, if you’re coming to this book for suspense or surprise, you will not find it. The plot is utterly predictable, even without Amelie’s very overt foreshadowing mentioning red flags and the end of friendships, etc. That’s the point: Bourne is preparing us for the emotional journey ahead by giving us the framework of the narrative journey. This isn’t about trying to figure out what will happen, how it will end, etc. It’s a story about Amelie coming to terms with this huge thing that happened to her.

Girls cry on park benches. Girls cry in train station waiting-rooms. They cry on the dance floor of clubs. Alfie was consistent, and, because of that, I wasn't crazy. I was calm, I was chill - I was all the things you wanted me to be, Reese. But I was incapable of being those things with you. The more you wanted me to be that "chill" girl - the more you made it clear that your love for me depended on it - the less chill and more crazy I got. Because you weren't consistent. She has a clever author voice and is able to speak to teenagers in their language, creating credible characters with whom young people can genuinely identify.Trigger warnings in this book for discussion and depictions of emotional and sexual abuse by a boyfriend. Amelie tells the story about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Reese who she met at school shortly after she and her parents moved to another part of England. The story is told from two different points in time, so she is basically telling the story of how she met Reese, fell in love and missed all the red flags until it was too late while reflecting on them, retracing and understanding what and why everything went wrong. The Places I've Cried nos muestra el desarrollo y las consecuencias de una relación abusiva, con cruda honestidad. Amelie, la protagonista, está decida a entender que fue lo que salió mal, a entender su dolor para poder superarlo. Para ello decide armar un mapa de recuerdos y recorrer cada punto donde Reese la haya hecho llorar. Es una historia difícil, donde la intensidad va en crescendo, con alta carga emocional y, me atrevo a decir, no para todo público. Who are you going to trust? The calm boy whose voice doesn't wobble, who can explain reasonably and using examples, why everything is fine-- or the crying girl saying she can feel something is wrong?

One day you’d be all over me, making my anxiety disappear, being kind and considerate and amazing and everything I’d always wanted. “God I love you, I love you so much,” you’d tell everyone at the lunch table, and the rest of the band would groan while I glowed. But then, later that afternoon, we’d walk past a girl and you’d say, “Wow, she’s so pretty,” then get in a mood with me if I dared to be upset. Overall, it wasn’t the most expertly written book I’ve ever read, but I think it explores some very important topics and is a book I wish I had read when I was a teenager. I’m interested to read more of Holly Bourne’s work so if anyone has any recommendations for me, please let me know in the comments! my only complaint is that reese was literally weird and unlikeable from the start and i wish holly bourne would've made us fall for him along with amelie at first. (i mean he called her "my canary") that way the reader would've felt themselves more in amelie's position. amelie was relatable anyway and i love her. the side characters are rather shallow, but since this book 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲, it didn't bother me. this is amelie's story, not anyone else's and especially not reese's. i love how amelie shows remorse, not trying to shove the blame away, while also knowing it is reese, who is to blame.

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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. I wish I had listened to my gut. It takes guts to listen to your gut, though. It takes bravery to walk away from something because part of your bowel tells you to. I mean, who does that? That is crazy. 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’. 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.