Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for sending me this advanced copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

I really liked the story, I feel like it was a pretty snappy read and it moved along very fast, there were a few moments where I felt the story was a bit tedious, but it picks up its pace very quickly.

I loved the characters, I really liked Rose as the main character and I found the concept of her being a person who struggles a lot to connect with people, and that she is able to enter people's subconscious quite interesting, I thought it was a pretty cool element and I also found it quite interesting that her family members had powers and that there was lgbt representation in one of the characters I liked.

It's an entertaining story, I like the concept she handles, being the first time I read the author, I really like her storytelling and I feel like I can keep reading more stories from her.

Some Faraway Place is the third and final Bright Sessions novel and Shippen has succeeded once again in making each installment feel distinct from one another. As a protagonist, Rose lands comfortably between Caleb and Damien and proves herself to be a messy, complex, and relatable narrator whose journey to discovering her ability shows the difficulty of coming into your potential in a family full of Atypicals. Told through Rose's dream journal entries, her brother Aaron's forum posts, her girlfriend Emily's blog posts, and Damien's letters, Some Faraway Place is the longest and most ambitious of the Bright Sessions novels and while it does stumble in places, it pays off well and, as always, the diversity of Shippen's characters throughout feels natural and comfortable. This world consistently feels like coming home and I'm sad to see it go, but Some Faraway Place is a lovely conclusion to the trilogy and one readers won't want to miss.

It was a very interesting read! There are 4 POVs and 4 writing formats. I really love the world building and diversity of the characters. Unfortunately there are just... so many details or maybe the writing formats, that the emotion felt a bit flat for me, especially Rose's. But overall, it was a nice read!

Some Faraway Place by Lauren Shippen is the third novel to go with The Bright Sessions podcast. This one is Rose’s story. It’s the first novel I’ve read, though I’ve listened to the whole of the podcast and really enjoyed the audiodrama. I feel like the book itself doesn’t work if you don’t have the context of the podcast – though I might feel differently if I hadn’t listened to it and only read the earlier books. The TL:DR is that in this world, there are humans who have special abilities, so-called Atypicals. There are two central places they go for help – a government agency referred to as the AM and a therapist operating largely independently, Dr. Bright. Rose, the main character of Some Faraway Place is in her late teens, dreams of being a chef and comes from a family of Atypicals when she realises that she can dreamwalk. The story follows her as she explores her ability, meets a cute girl, falls in love, through a lot of family and relationship drama and gives a different perspective to quite a bit of the events of the podcast. However, I feel like my enjoyment of this was hampered a lot by having listened to the audiodrama first. I knew about a lot of the twists before they happened and I didn’t think the writing itself was strong enough to work as a novel. Loved the characters and base material, this… not so much.

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc!

Some Faraway Place would be a great read for lovers of sci-fi, ya fantasy, and contemporary. It deals with finding yourself and your own identity which is why I think it would definitely resonate best with younger readers. It conversational, and simple to follow language is consistent with the ya genre and feels like a nice break from reality.

It has great diversity, with a jewish & lesbian main character as well as her love interest who is a pansexual Latina. I feel like we don’t get a ton of pansexual rep currently so that was nice to see as well. I loved the dialogue and that it didn’t feel removed from the world around them.

I enjoyed seeing the different ways that character point of views were explored, via blog posts, group chats, etc. I did think the formatting of the arc made it a bit difficult to read at times, but I’m sure that will change. Overall, I think this would be a great ya read. If you’re a fan of discovered powers and books of the like, I think that this book is for you.

In a family of atypical people, that is - humans with supernatural abilities, Rose is as typical as it gets. Navigating young adulthood is hard enough, but living with a telekinetic father, psychic mother, and mind-reading brother, all while having no extraordinary skills (besides the culinary sort) has been really tough. Until Rose finds herself in other people's dreams. Rare as it might be, developing an atypical ability at 19 finally opens the door for Rose to feel some semblance of belonging.

Navigating her dreamdiving becomes a lot harder than she could have imagined, especially as Rose starts discovering the darker side of her ability.

In Some Faraway Place, the reader gets drawn into Lauren Shippen's The Bright Sessions podcast world with ease. As a reader that was only minimally familiar with the podcast universe, I found the book's plot and characters easy to follow. I loved the different points of view (and the different mediums in which the story was told). The diversity that Shippen includes throughout the book is such a refreshing sight and truly made the book feel realistic and rooted in the modern day time period it was set in. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who likes YA fiction, supernatural and fantasy, LGBTQ+, romance, and coming-of-age stories.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!

I'm always happy to read more sapphic books and this book delivered on that front. It was fun, sweet and just enjoyable to read. I liked the fantasy aspect, I found the idea to be pretty cool. I think it's a perfect summer read.

Some Faraway Place follows a story of an usual Rose with an unusual family. Except for her, everybody in her family has some powers. They are Atypicals. Her father is teleketinci, her mom has visions of future and her brother, Aaron, he can read minds. And for Rose, well she is a good cook.

Rose has been having problem, she falls asleep anywhere, anytime. She doubts it's narcolepsy. It isn't that wierd until she falls asleep in front of a very cute girl (Emily) she met in hospital. What a bad first impression!

It takes her while to share about her narcolepsy to her parents. And when she does, they believe it's her showing signs of being Atypical. Rose doesn't believe them but eventually has to go to AM, an hospital for the unusuals. It turns out she's a dreamdiver. She learns to control her powers in AM. But once wasn't enough, and she soon again has to visit AM after her initial visit. On her last day there, she meets the guy whose dreams she went in. Damien.

But what secrets does he know about the AM? Secrets that shouldn't be told, will Rose be able to get what the AM hides from their patients?

It's the type of story I haven't read before. Specially the writing. The story is written in four formats. Rose writes in her dream journal, Emily on blog posts, Aaron on forums, and Damien through letters. The story seems interesting, but Rose seems not too much human to me. It could have been better if more emotions were put. I wouldn't generally read this novel, but it did pulled me within the words.

I really enjoyed this book! It starts off with a sweet sapphic meet-cute, just as Rose discovers her cool ability, which totally hooked me. Overall, I liked Rose. Yes, she’s flawed and makes some huge mistakes, but she remains likable and relatable throughout the story, which is something I’m always relieved to find in a YA novel.

There’s a strong theme of identity throughout the story. Multiple characters are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the world around them. I especially liked the contrast between Rose trying to figure out who she is now that she finally has an ability, just as her father is diagnosed with a condition that will make him forget who he is and that he even has an ability.

Sometimes I can guess where the story is going. That was not the case with this novel! There was a mysterious POV that kept popping up, and I could not figure out how their piece fit into the story puzzle until their identity was revealed. I enjoyed the air of mystery around this character, it was in line with the identity theme, and left me wondering, “who is he really?”

Some Faraway Place was a solid read. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Let me start by saying that this is not a fantasy novel that I would go for, but did I enjoy it.
It was simple, readable, I found it so very cute and all of that, but something was just missing.

This book was pretty diverse when it comes to the characters, but it wasn't at all pushy like many books with LGBTQ+ characters tend to be. There were several viewpoints all in a different format (forums, blog posts, letters, journal entries) but Rose's (dream journal that wasn't that much about dreams) felt like the main (most important?) one.

I really liked the book for the first 70%, but then something just started to feel off. Something was missing, and I didn't like it.

The main story was basically miscommunication between Rose and the rest of the characters and her desperate tries to make things better. She makes some wrong choices (who wouldn't in her shoes!?), but it seems that everything magically solves itself towards the end of the book. I didn't like that. At all. If things are going to get solved, I want to see how. Not a mental breakdown and a few tears hear and there, and everything is perfect.

To be honest, the ending was so meek and totally unimportant that I feel like I've already forgotten it. And I finished reading the book, like, 10 hours ago.

Bottom line: This was a cute and easy read with likeable, diverse characters. The language was simple and approachable, but the ending just seemed lazy.

When I saw a fantasy novel about dream traveling and a chef I jumped right in. I thought this was the perfect book for me and that I would love it. The cover is so perfect too... sadly I just don’t like the voice of the main narrator, it doesn’t take me in, and nothing happens in the first 40% of the novel. Heartbreakingly this isn’t for me.

I've read the first book of this series, but skipped the second one, so my knowledge on the world building was pretty good, although some things that I'm assuming were further developed in Book #2 I had to use context clues to understand.

Overall, I thought this book was interesting, and had good pacing which kept me hooked. Unfortunately I didn't connect to the character's as much as I thought I would; they just needed some further developing so I could really feel like I understood them and liked them.

Overall, I love what Shippen has done with this world, and I think the idea is brilliant. I do wish for some intentional details to be added to support character development and world building, but overall this was a really solid book that kept me entertained and enjoying it.

I would like to first disclaim that while people have said you can read these separately, I highly recommend that you don’t. Additionally, you may also benefit from listening to the podcast.
This book is incredibly layered, with many contemporary aspects wrapped into an amazing sci-fi series. Rose is a likable character, with completely understandable character flaws.
Admittedly, there were moments where the plot lulled for me. I was invested, regardless, in how Rose grew as a person. All in all, this book was enjoyable! I think I just would have liked it to be better formatted before being released to reviewers. I also would have preferred a little bit more context and world-building for the events in the last 25% of the book.
Full review September 17th, 2021.

This is a stunning series where I adored book 1 and 2. Book 3 was an enjoyable journey with some wonderfully diverse characters and is a good addition to the series.

ok so the book was not bad, just not what I expected of this series, I loved the first one and really enjoyed the second but this third one just didn't really make it for me, and it wasn't the story itself, it was more the format of the writing, it's written from several POV and each one it's presented different, one is journal entries, another blog posts and other one as group chats
it just threw me off and could not really enjoy it fully

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing for the e-arc!
I want to preface this by saying I'm a fan of complexity in literature; I love complicated magic systems and purple prose. This novel has neither, but I found myself enjoying it nonetheless. The magic system is pretty simplistic. It's not exactly unique; in all honesty, Atypical skills just sound like average superhero abilities. For example, the narrator's father can levitate objects, and her brother can read people's minds. The language is simple and accessible, which is fairly standard for YA, but it's not what I personally look for in a novel. The narrator's tone is a bit juvenile. I often found myself forgetting that Rose is actually a young adult. She is 19, but there are times when she acts a lot younger.

That being said, there were some great things about this novel. It had excellent diversity (main character is a Jewish lesbian, her love interest is a pansexual Latina), the dialogue was heartfelt, and the pop culture references were funny (one of the characters is a Stucky fanfiction writer). I love the different POVs, and the way each central character has their own writing format. Emily's blog posts were so real, as were Aaron's forum discussions. I love that the narrator is a lesbian, but her story does not centre around coming out or discovering her sexuality. When so many queer narratives follow a coming-out narrative, it is refreshing to read a story where the narrator is secure in her identity.

I thought this book was good and love the writing style. The story was action packed but mostly was shown through the character's reaction. It was an entertaining read. I didn't connect with the main characters as much as I thought I would. Overall I enjoyed this book.

I really enjoyed reading this story. I liked that the story is told a little differently from multiple points of view. Some point of views being forum posts and blog entries really helped give the story more depth and helped flesh out the characters and more of their personalities. It made the story feel very modern. This book highlights the every day struggles a person with abilities might face and how they would learn to accept them. It was more of an inward dive into dealing with powers and balancing it with a normal life. I really liked the part when her new girlfriend met her family and how everyone was trying to keep things normal, but struggling. Parts of the story became a little slow but didn’t hurt the storyline. The mystery of how the characters were linked added a nice bit of intrigue and tied things up pretty well at the end. Overall, it was an interesting glimpse into what a family with superpowers would be like and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’d recommend it to others.

Some Faraway Place by Lauren Shippen follows Rose: a nineteen year-old who wishes she had powers like the rest of her family until one day she discovers she has powers of her own. I thought it was interesting how the story was told through a series of logs - digital posts and journal entries/letters - from the different main characters. The plot was easy enough to follow; although, I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I thought I would. Overall there are interesting themes about how what you wish for may not be as great as you thought it’d be, which is interesting and refreshing to see in a YA novel.

I loved this one! I'm a huge fan of Lauren Shippen's entire Atypical universe, and this book did not disappoint. The plot did feel kind of stretched out, and there were parts that seemed superfluous or long, but the ending was fantastic and made up for it.