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

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This book follows Amelie, a sixteen year old who moves Down South from Sheffield, leaving behind friends, a boyfriend, and sixth form for an unknown town somewhere insignificantly near London. She's musical. She's self-deprecating. She wears granny cardigans and vintage dresses. She likes her parents. What happens (or more specifically who happens) after she joins a new college makes up the rest of the book. This is a story of surviving love. Or put more clearly, this is a story of surviving what you thought was love. Girls cry on park benches. Girls cry in train station waiting-rooms. They cry on the dance floor of clubs. You are looking for a piece of honest, no-nonsense teen literature that will empower students, make them feel like they are not alone and help them make healthy, confident decisions.

A school project gives Amelie the idea. She’ll create a memory map of all the places he made her cry. 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. 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. 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.

But that is also when she meets Resse who is mister-charisma-spills-from-me, I'm-a-human-attracting-magnet. basically-the-everyday-fantasy-YA-love interest (yeah, tall, brooding, is in love with you from day 1 !!!!instant connection!!!! keeps staring at your face and keeps reminding you that it's in a romantic not creepy way.) This delicate novel explores a concept that is rarely touched upon in YA books and it's done in such an exceptional way. The book is told through two different timelines, a before and after if you will, and I believe it was the right choice to tell this story in the best way possible. 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.)

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. Amelie, however, is an exception. She’s wept in Clapham Junction waiting room, the music classroom, the bench on top of the common and plenty more places besides. And what has been the reason for her tears?

About YoungMinds

Second, the parents are great, as usual. This is something I don’t want to go unremarked about Bourne’s novels—so many YA novels neglect parents, or use them as casual antagonists. And sure, not everyone has great parents (or even a pair of parents), and those stories are valid. But I love that Bourne often portrays protagonists whose parents are as loving and supportive as they know how to be and yet the protagonist still struggles. The “it” that I’m working through now. The messy line of biro. The dots on a map where you made me cry – I’m sure it’s all my fault somehow. If only I’d done things differently. Been… less me, then I wouldn’t have driven you away. Amo a Holly Bourne desde que leí It Only Happens in the Movies, es auténtica, sarcástica y honesta. Así que cuando vi este libro no dudé ni un minuto antes comenzar a leerlo. A pesar del título esperaba algo divertido, inteligente, sí, pero también ligero. Themes: coming of age, love, first love, grief, abuse, trauma, forgiveness, toxic relationships, manipulation, therapy, mental health