Thank you TORTeen and Netgalley for an eARC of 'Some Faraway Place' in exchange for an honest review.

I cannot believe this is our last 'Bright Sessions' novel! And I cannot believe I am saying this (especially given how I felt following 'A Neon Darkness') but, I think I need more Damien? Blue lightning better not strike me dead for this...

I will say, that while I loved this novel, I would never recommend it as a stand-alone. Even having listened to the original podcast and read the first two novels, I got a little confused and only realized around page 100 that the character writing letters to Mark in December was not a future Rose. Oops! At that point I took a breather, reset my cluttered brain, and figured out where we properly fell in the timeline (as compared with the Podcast, 'The Infinite Noise' and 'A Neon Darkness'). And apart from my own flibbertigibbedness--I simply feel that this universe Lauren Shippen created is so complex, and there are so many little threads and puzzle pieces that you will never fully grasp and appreciate as a reader if you have not experienced the whole story. So basically what I am saying is this: Listen to and Read it ALL!!! You will not regret it!!! I PROMISE!!!!!!


SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!




Returning to 'Some Faraway Place' particularly... I loved that this novel offered us an entirely new format. Again. And I loved the number of voices participating in and contributing to the story as a whole--Rose's journal entries, Damien's letters, Aaron's discussion board posts, Emily's blog posts. These alternating perspectives kept the narative moving, while further offering multiple viewpoints and glimpses into different characters' contrasting perspectives and experiences; which was particularly key (at least for me) as I found Rose herself rather frustrating and even a tad unreliable as our primary narrator. Now, given that by the end of the novel, I also questioned whose story we were truly telling this whole time? (*cough*Damien*cough) And the fact that Rose herself appearing as a somewhat morally grey character who unquestionably shared a connection with our Anti-Hero thereby provided a distinctly unique (yet same) vision of him? Makes this character arc seem a deliberate choice and one that I appreciate immensely. Which does not mean it was any easier to read and not want to reach into my ereader and shake the girl about a thousand times over!

Ultimately, as mentioned above, while I would not recommend someone read this novel blindly--without any introduction to the world of the Bright Sessions and the AM. I unquestionably recommend exploring the world as a whole! There are now 3 podcast and 3 novels and they are all connected and all worth all the love.

I loved this! I listened to the bright sessions and love getting to relearn the story from a new perspective. I love the perspective this book is in, told through journal entries and social media posts. It feels like a good connection to the og podcast told through recordings. And Damien,,,, geez this book really got me to start sympathizing with him. I’m pretty sure this is the last book and I’m sad this story is over but this is a great way to say goodbye.

Rep: sapphic, WLW, POC, side mlm
CW: terminal illness,

Lauren Shippen knows how to make characters with supernatural abilities feel more real, tangible and humans and that it’s one of the greatest powers that one can have!

Before I start with my whole review, I guess I should add a few notes about this book:

As it happened with the previous two books (‘The Infinite Noise’ and ‘A Neon Darkness’), ‘Some Faraway Place’ doesn’t require any previous knowledge about this universe or these characters. Rose’s story stands on its own and it can be read as a separate story. So this book could be an interesting entry point for new readers to this vast universe.

At the same time… This book is a great addition for those of us who were already familiar with the previous books and the podcasts! It brings callbacks, cameos and new perspectives to the things we already knew about this world and the previously established characters that we already knew and appreciated it!

Okay… Time for the actual review now…

‘Some Faraway Place’ is a different kind of coming-of-age story, and yet it feels like something real, and tangible…

In this book, we follow Rose Atkinson, a nineteen year old girl who works in a restaurant and the only ‘normal’ person in a family full of Atypicals (people with supernatural abilities)… Or so she thought… When she discovers that she can enter other people’s dreams (and alter them at her own will)… Her life will change forever in many different ways…

Rose is a complex character… She’s not your average YA heroine with an almost perfect life or the required knowledge to survive all the obstacles that are thrown in her way. She’s just a girl who tries her best to find who she really is and what is her place in the ever-changing world that surrounds her.

Most times her decisions aren’t the right ones… She messes up, she chooses the wrong options, but like any of us… She tries to learn from her mistakes and keep moving forward… In that way, Rose Atkinson feels human and real… Someone with the capable of growing and trying to be the best version of herself at that moment!


This is a story about facing uncertainty in the most complicated time of our lives, when you may not have the necessary tools or the right directions…. It’s everything I’ve mentioned before and so much more…

As someone who has listened ‘The Bright Sessions’ podcast, I was very aware that there could be some sort of connection with that original story… And like ‘The Infinite Noise’, ‘Some Faraway Place’ shows us another side of the events we already knew and the character we already appreciated, a different point of view that expands this universe we already knew and make it bigger, more complicated and utterly human.

‘Some Faraway Place’ expands The Bright Sessions’ universe in many ways that I wasn’t expecting. This new light over the world and its characters added a new layer that makes them feel more alive and complex!

I could keep talking about this book for a long, long time… But I think I’m going to finish this review with a few points:

- Lauren Shippen does a pretty great job giving Rose a distinctive voice and making ‘Some Faraway Place’ its own unique thing (different from the two previous books). The main story is narrated by Rose herself, and it’s written like a diary.

- The fact that we can read different points of view (of those close to Rose) every once in a while creates a complete picture of Rose and the world that surrounds her.

- Some messages from this book will stay with me forever and I don’t have enough words to express how much important that feels to me!

- The connections between these characters are one of the strong points on this books. These character are well-written, dimensional and they almost feel alive.

Overall… ‘Some Faraway Place’ is the perfect addition to the Bright Sessions universe. This book expands that world and brings us a different side of some of the characters that we already knew, creating a new story that is complex, flawed and utterly human that shines with a bright light.

I totally recommend it!

Overall its a cute story, I enjoy the podcast so I liked this but I do think that someone who has not listened to the podcast would have a hard time following it.

Incredibly confusing novel, they market them as standalones but unless you've read the others you're bound to be lost the whole way through.

Read the other novels, don't go in blind like I did or the whole story will fall flat and you won't be able to enjoy it

Lauren Shippen's The Bright Sessions audio drama is such a delightful piece of reader's theatre. The dialogue is crisp and moves the story forward. In her third novel, Shippen is moving the story forward and expanding the universe of The Bright Sessions. Each novel is told from the point of view of a different teen who uncovers their supernatural abilities. In this piece, we meet Rose, who had thought she was the only "normal"/non-powered member of her family. Rose's story in summary is engaging and a strong concept, distinct from the previous installments. Yet, the execution is a bit of a disappointment because of slow pacing and a disjointed narrative. Fans of the audio drama will delight in the dialogue and the concept, but it may be hard for new audiences to get hooked in the same way. You really need that pre-existing knowledge of the series and the concept to follow along with the thread of what's happening.

Awww, I've just finished this book and I'm almost crying. I didn't read anything like this before and I'm a bit confused, because it's a bit weird but I loved it. Maybe I just love this kind of stories.
I've went through three different parts of this book. First, I've met Rose and her family with abilities: telekinesis, psychic and mind reader. The first pages are filled with a very normal life of a teenager girl, who's trying to live her life: a perfect family for a too normal girl. It was a nice part, because I understood Rose, I've been like her when I was a teenager too. When I read this part I thought t'ha the book will be a normal YA story. It was cute and cosy.
The second part has some creepy and interesting lines. We get to know more about the abilities and Rose, finally get hers. And here things became more complicated.
But the third part, it was a very cool read, really. The end was perfect in my opinion.
I loved how the author divided the book. There aren't any chapter, it's divided by different point of views. The story is told by Rose, Aaron (her brother), Emily (her girlfriend) and Damien (I loved this character). And each character writes the story in a different ways: a journal, a website and letters. It was nice to read it that way. I've really enjoyed it.
All the characters are broken at some point, and this show us the human nature. We're all broken in some ways, and it's OK. The most important thing it's not lying to ourselves. The most important thing is hope and love.
Definetly, a very good story. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher to provide me with this beautiful book.

I've listened to The Bright Sessions quite a long time ago and to be honest not completed it but I was nonetheless excited when I heard there would be a book series on the universe Lauren Shippen created.
After reading the first volume and not wanting to read the second one, I dived into Some Faraway Place. This book is particular, not only because of the story but in how it's formatted too; the story is told through journal entries, blog posts, reddit posts, and letters, each with a different point of view. I absolutely loved this way of telling the story, it made it more fun and dynamic in my opinion, and made understanding the story and the characters easier. I preferred the letters pov because they were very lyrical but the other povs were very interesting as well (especially with the connections between the characters that those povs show).
About the characters, I really liked some of them like Emily, and to my surprise Damien, but I didn't connect that much with the main character Rose. The relationships between the characters wether they be familial, romantic or platonic were very well done, especially the family part that I found very realistic and touching at times.
The plot of the book was pretty simple in the beginning though it became very different towards the last quarter (which I didn't enjoy as much as the rest of the book) but it didn't bother me as I see this story as very character-driven.
I'd also note that some parts of the book were a little confusing/hard to get into if you haven't listened to the podcast but nothing major.

I really liked this book, it has a good combination of science fiction, family drama and young adult novel. The author's writing has improved over previous books and shows us a point of view that is hardly explored in the podcast.
The protagonist, Rose, is unbearable, but that's the point and I think she builds this aspect of the story very well. That Rose is so imperfect and her interaction with Damien is what makes this book so special. I really liked the way the characters' feelings were captured and how they can come to a personal conclusion even if things remain unresolved.
I also liked the subject of powers a lot, the different points of view and how each atypical lives his life is wonderful. In addition, the different narrative resources that are used to tell the story (blogs, newspapers, reddit) are very interesting and make the reading more dynamic.
On the other hand, it gave me the feeling that at times the story became low and lower, especially in the first few pages. Some characters that seemed important are left in the middle of the road, and time jumps or skipping some situations affect the experience.
However, I find the point of view where being an Atypical is the rule refreshing. I loved Rose's family and I wish they had more moments in history.
This book can be read individually, but I wouldn't recommend it, because without the information from the previous books and the podcast it feels incomplete. However, as a companion story it works very well and if you are fans of the series, you are going to love it.

(4.5 stars)

I don’t really have much to say about this book except if you loved The Bright Sessions, you’re gonna LOVE Some Farway Place.

It was a little bit weird at first. I didn`t understood what was it about, but while reading, i realised this book was the third of a trilogy, and then i tryed to enjoy. Había un par de cosas que se me hicieron raras al principio, like, some characters being a little bit off sometimes y como la historia progresaba con elles.
Pero, aún así, Rose was a good character to read and she has a great development.
Some plots where no need.

I most definitely need to read this author more often because what a story. What a unique different and mind focusing storyline. Love how this was different and wasnt the dame as every YA novel. I cant wait to see more from this world

How do you react when you finally get what you’ve always assumed you’d never have? For Rose, she finally becomes like the rest of her family. She finally develops her atypical ability. The trickier thing is not losing herself entirely and in the process, losing her family.

The first Bright Sessions novels focused on characters we had known since almost the beginning of the show. While The Infinite Noise focused on missing moments between Caleb and Adam, A Neon Darkness gave us Damien’s history and allowed us to see what led to the way he is now. In Some Faraway Place, Lauren Shippen takes a more recent character from The Bright Sessions and dives deep into her story, something that could not be done within the narrative of the show. And how lucky we are to have Rose’s story here in this book as a result.

Rose spends most of her life feeling like the outcast of a family of Atypicals since she herself does not seem to have an ability. When she discovers that she can dream walk, entering into the dreams of those around her, it becomes a slippery slope. She sleeps more to escape the world around her. Rose’s father is having memory loss issues and the way Rose can cope with this is staying in the “dream world,” choosing to connect with her family by watching their dreams that they will most likely not remember her being in.

What a deep look into the way our minds work, the way we try and cope with difficult life choices and bad hands dealt to us. Rose looks for the escape in a way that doesn’t directly hurt anyone, but still causes tension with her family, the new relationship she is forming with Emily, and the strange friendship that has developed with another Atypical.

Shippen plays with the structure of this book, alternating from prose, to blog posts, to letters, and to forum posting. It keeps the different perspectives clean while still pushing the narrative forward.

This is such a complex book that really is a beautiful part of the conclusion to this world. I am so sad to see the Bright Sessions universe come to a close but if this book (and the others) are any indication, this is only the beginning for Shippen and I can’t wait to see what she creates next.

5 stars.

**Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review**
"Some Faraway Place" by Lauren Shippen is the third installment in a series of interconnected stories about a world where some humans have supernatural abilities. In this book, we're following Rose, a girl who comes from a family of Atypicals and always assumed the gene had somehow skipped her, until she starts randomly falling asleep and getting strange dreams.
This immediately piqued my interest, from the first page I knew this was going to be a great and wild experience, even though I had no idea what was going on and wouldn't for a while. The relationships in the story are so distinct and real, and the romantic one is adorable even with its ups and downs. The online posts and letters are a great way to mix up the format and give us an insight into other characters' minds. The clues the author left about theneonthorn's identity, though obvious to me, were really fun to spot and really solidified the author's ability to write characters.
One thing that put me off was the dialogue. I know what I read wasn't a finished product, but in some parts a character would talk and in the next paragraph, it would still be them. This was confusing and made me lose track of who was talking in a conversation.
Overall, I give this 4/5 stars and look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series, and listening to the podcast, of course!

Big thank you to Tor Teen and Netgalley for providing a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to point out that this book is the third in a shared world trilogy and I have not read the first two, however I do not feel this affected my understanding of the world or characters in a significant way.

It's very difficult to pin down my feelings about this book, as it seemed to be all over the place. The main character Rose was sometimes relatable, sometimes infuriating. The writing was sometimes beautiful, sometimes juvenile. The plot was sometimes interesting, sometimes dull and repetitive, and as a result I'm left feeling like I enjoyed the book overall but didn't love a lot of the specifics.

The world Shippen has created is interesting; people called Atypicals manifest super abilities like mind reading and telekinesis in adolescence, They need to learn to deal with and control these powers while keeping them general secret from the public, and they receive help from what seems to be a national or international organization called the Atypical Monitors, or AM. It's a cool idea, and I loved the range of different powers and the idea of a possibly shady organization posed as a facility to help Atypicals.

In Some Faraway Place we follow 19 year old Rose, a late bloomer in a family full of Atypicals, who has just discovered her rare ability to dreamdive, which allows her to enter and affect people's dreams. Rose has felt like an outsider as most people get their abilities in their early teens, her brother having gotten his years ago, so she's the only "normie" among her family, and she struggles with feeling like she's different, both before her power appears but also after because her particular power is so unusual.

Here's the thing though: Rose is selfish. She's incredibly, unflinchingly selfish, not to mention totally lacking in common sense, and she only begins taking actual steps to change at the very tail end of the book. Now, I enjoy a flawed protagonist, but Rose kept making the same dumb, selfish mistakes, acknowledging she was making the same dumb selfish mistakes, and then CONTINUING to make the same dumb, selfish mistakes! It was frustrating to read, and while I sympathized with her about feeling like an outsider from her family, when she finally finds out she's like them she immediately jumps into their heads and enters their dreams without their consent, while completely ignoring them irl. In fact, she does this with everyone despite the fact that every single person has gotten upset with her for it. I can't count how many times she says she's going to pay more attention to her sick father and then immediately goes back to avoiding him. She is lied to and used by a "friend" over and over and yet she continues believing everything he tells her, without question, WHILE she's remembering all the times he lied previously. I wanted very much to like Rose because she should've been a great character but more often than not I found myself wanting to smack her.

There are some other things that bothered me, like the fact that a friendship between a 19 year old girl and a 29 year old man is portrayed as acceptable just because they "get" each other and the fact that a lot of time is spent setting up a new relationship which then disappears almost completely except for a random update here and there from the other person's point of view, but the other big issue is that there is a mystery surrounding the AM and things they may or may not be doing on the shady side and then [SPOILERS, kinda] towards to end someone says "I'm going to fix everything, promise" and Rose kind of just goes "OK, good" and that's the end of it. I wanted a lot more out of that whole plot line and was very frustrated that the whole thing fizzled out into nothing.[End spoilers]

Some Faraway Place is written as diary entries interspersed with letters and Reddit and Tumblr (or "Readit" and "Mumblr" ) posts from side characters. The diary format took a while to get used to— I haven't read a book written that way since I was a kid— and I wouldn't say it's my favorite writing style but I didn't mind it and it made for a very easy read. The letters were interesting because there was a mystery with them; you don't know who they're to or from until halfway through the book. The social media posts tended to just restate what had happened in the last entry and ended up being fairly tedious.

This has been mostly negative so I want to point out the positive, since I did like this book more than dislike it. The book has great casual queer rep, and I'm never mad when it book has a lot of queer characters and doesn't feel the need to throw in a random scene featuring homophobia. This book has none of that and between that and the ultimate message of being present for the people you love now because you can't control tomorrow, I wouldn't hesitate to call this book wholesome, which I appreciated.

The characters were a mixed bag but in general I found them compelling. While I didn't always love Rose, she was at least interesting and I liked Aaron, Rose's complicated but ultimately caring older brother. I liked what little we saw of Dr. Bright, I liked Mark, Sam, Caleb, and Adam and wished there had been more of them, but I understand at least some of them are from a previous book. I wanted to like Emily, Rose's new girlfriend, but every time I thought we were getting a glimpse of her personality she would disappear for 40 pages.

It's possible I would feel differently if I had read the first two books in this series first and I enjoyed this one enough to give them a chance. I did enjoy the ride, so to speak, of Some Faraway Place, and had the ending been more satisfying this would have easily been four stars. I'll be reading The Infinite Noise soon because I'm very interested to get Caleb and Adam's story, so stay tuned!

I made it to about 10% of the way through the book and decided to call it quits. It wasn't so bad, I just wasn't invested or interested. The worldbuilding was nonexistent, and the main characters had identical narration styles. The primary girl, Rose, was the main reason I quit reading (alongside a niche reason I explain in a moment). Rose was ungrateful, annoying, whiny, and self-centered. She complained on EVERY page. Additionally, the "lingo" of this book feels like it's trying waaaay too hard to be young and relatable. For the most part, teens talk like adults in real life. Especially when they're almost twenty. That's true realism.

This book ought to be labeled as Middle Grade, because it's definitely too juvenile for YA based on what I read. Perhaps it would be more successful there. Obviously, if there's mature content later then I'm wrong.

My niche reason for disliking this book is the same reason I picked it up in the first place. I Lucid Dream, and this entire book is based on the concept of Rose having power through her dreams. I love the idea of it! Such a fun concept! The thing is, though, her "unusual" dreams are really short (a couple pages each) and completely normal. I dream journal daily, and I've seen far more weirdness than Rose has. She also passingly mentions Lucid Dreaming and then refuses to research it despite it being the thing most likely occurring in-context. I feel like I'm the target audience for this story as someone passionate about dreams, and it just really missed the mark for me.

I really, REALLY tried to like this story.
But I just couldn't. And it's mainly because this book is very long but still manages to be so all over the place I have no idea where this was going the whole time. I while like books that are character-driven, the said characters have to be a minimum interesting, which they just... weren't.
We've got the classic main character, Rose, who's not special, blabla, but everyone in her family is, so she has to accept the fact she might not have powers but can still be someone special.... until she finds out she does, in fact, have powers! (That said, I liked her said powers. It's not something you'd find anywhere, much less on a MC.) The book is written mostly from her perspective, being in the format of her journal, BUT ! We also gets snippets of other's characters POV's with each their own form : reddit for her brother, who spends most of his time on the Atypical forum revealing way too much about his personal life for no one to spot him irl; tumblr for her love interest, who we finds out, uses it to write Avengers smut (yes!), and unsent letters from Damien, one of her too old friends from the Atypical clinic with a nonsensical story. And honestly ? We could've gone without them, they're not useful in the slightest. I'll admit, I was intrigued at first by the letters, because we only find out from who's poverties they are until, like, half of the book, and because the letters were talking about LITERAL CRIMES!
But uh, after half the book, they just ruin the interactions between characters, making them VERY anticlimactic. Like, "wow, this character said something absolutely horrible to Rose, I hope we'll find out if there's a reason". Well. Yeah. We do. Two pages laters, which leaves... absolutely no tension whatsoever.
But to be fair, even without that, there's absolutely no tension in this whole book. The characters are just either nonsensical or inexistant, we're just floating through 300 pages of fog and... That's it.
Eh, it had the good point of being cute sometimes, at least....!

Due to my many nieces, I enjoy reading teen YA books so I can screen them for my family. This was wonderful; the voice and tone were so easy to follow and absorb. Despite this book being categorized as teen YA, I felt like I was in another time and place for a short while and that it was a well-paced, everyday novel. This felt like a standalone or close enough to it despite my lack of knowledge of the series' lore. Lauren Shippen's Some Faraway Place is relatable in that although this is science fiction, it makes you feel so connected to the story. For a YA piece, it feels incredible to be able to do that. This was a lot of fun.

I really enjoyed Some Faraway Place! I loved the cover art and the story and I will feel compelled to read Bright Sessions books in the future. Some Faraway Place really explores belonging and the struggle to fit-in. I really enjoyed this book and while I hadn't read the fist two Bright Sessions novels, the world building really enabled me to catch-up. Rose is really relatable despite having magical abilities and you really cheer for her success.

the perfect fast paced read ! I thoroughly enjoyed the character of rose as a protagonist I felt like she was a complicated yet lovable character and her plot was enticing to read. I was thoroughly engaged with the plot of the normal that due to its fast paced nature felt like a whirlwind! I also enjoyed the mixed media aspect of the novel that included forum post that broke up the narrative. Overall a delightful read and I would recommend!