Hey Addicts, it's time for another review courtesy of Xpresso Tours and author Cheyenne Young. Her YA book SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW is a unique one, and thus why it grabbed my attention.
Read on to see where it fell on my addiction scale.

Somewhere Only We Know

Sadie Bradford’s life is one anxiety attack after another. All she wants is to escape life's realities for the summer and hang out with her best friend Aaron. But her grandmother has other plans: Sadie will get a job. Sadie will do volunteer work. Sadie will make new friends - friends without brain injuries that make them forget everything...friends that aren’t Aaron.

While Sadie struggles to survive her anxiety with all these new changes, she finds an escape when she dreams herself into the beautiful world of Isola Fiona. It’s a place that cures memory loss and anxiety. It’s a place where she and Aaron can fall in love.

But after dragging Aaron along with her to her dream world, things take a turn. Every time they return home, Sadie’s anxiety is a little better but Aaron’s memory is still gone. And Isola Fiona may not be much of a dream after all. As Sadie realizes that Isola Fiona is as real as her anxiety, she rushes to change the course of fate and make things right, but she may be too late... 


MY REVIEW:

I won't start this with a quote, but I will say that Cheyenne Young hit on a lot of quotable, almost philosophical things in SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW. Let me start by saying I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Sadie has massive anxiety problems. The book opened with a very punchy scene where we see just how much she suffers. She was diagnosed three years ago and the only person who gives her any kind of comfort is her best friend, Aaron, who suffers from his own mental problems. Dealing with her anxiety is not easy, especially when her grandmother insists that she get a job and start socializing with other people outside Aaron.
It doesn't go over so well, then somehow her and Aaron end up being puled into this dream world where they don't have their mental disorders and they can feel like normal people.
Sadie was a very strong protag, even if there were times I got frustrated with her. She takes meds for her severe anxiety, supposed to be one a day, yet she almost always ends up taking three or more. This is a good and bad point for me. I very much appreciate how the author showed mental disorders and handled them with respect and care, but Sadie taking more than her prescribed amount of pills is call addiction, a subject that is never touched on, yet I thought should have been.
The romance, the dreams, the mental health issues were the only focuses in SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW, and they were great, but there were other things, that I felt, tied very closely to the overall plot that were left out, aka the drug abuse.
Don't get me wrong, it's not done in a bad way, and it's not written like a horrible thing, but I felt if you're taking on the mental health issue, you should hit all the aspects you set up with it.
Aaron is a very unique character, much like Sadie. He had a very bad fever when he was a kid that gave him a very bad short term memory disorder. He can barely remember what he had for breakfast. As a YA hero, he wasn't my favorite, but I loved the bond between him and Sadie. I loved how they supported each other and the dreams they shared........loved them.
On the top layer of this story, this book is good, but, there felt like there was no real depth or development. I wanted more.
A terminal case for me lately.
I liked that Sadie overcame her anxiety in the end, and I enjoyed the who debate of which is better: Reality or Dreams, but I felt like there were things lacking.
I very much appreciate that Sadie and Aaron weren't the typical YA protags with magical power, they were very real and human. But again, I wanted more overall, despite how unique and special SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW was.
I would recommend the book to those who have their own struggles, and those who want to read a YA that doesn't involve magic. I think it would be a good light read for the summer.
~Dynomoon



Cheyanne is a native Texan with a fear of cold weather and a coffee addiction that probably needs an intervention. She loves books, sarcasm, nail polish and paid holidays. She lives near the beach with her family, one spoiled rotten puppy and a cat who is most likely plotting to take over the world.

She also writes under the pen name Amy Sparling.

http://www.cheyanneyoung.com/   http://www.twitter.com/NormalChey