Review – The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne

The Places I've Cried in Public by Holly Bourne
Published by Usborne Publishing Ltd on October 3, 2019
Genres: Contemporary
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Amelie loved Reese. And she thought he loved her. But she’s starting to realise love isn’t supposed to hurt like this. So now she’s retracing their story and untangling what happened by revisiting all the places he made her cry.

Because if she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn to get over him.

Content warnings – Abuse, unhealthy relationships 

This is her tenth YA book and Holly Bourne isn’t Queen of YA for nothing!

It taken me a while to really put this book into words. If you saw my tweets when reading this book you will understand that this book pretty much ripped me apart. There was snot, I’m happy to admit that. When you read this book, please have a box of tissues with you, you will need them. I promise you that. 

Amelie starts 6th Form completely alone and straight into the unknown, but she still has herself, her cardigans and her music. On Open Talent night she meets a guy as part of a band, Reese. He’s intense, loves music and he takes quite a shine to her, (awww you’re thinking) – no, shine isn’t the right word; more like obsession. He confuses her, meddling with her feelings by saying all the right things – well you think he does it romantically, but no. Even her new friends, Hannah, Jack and Liv have warned her about him but Reese had already started worming his way into her life. She thought the grand gestures, impressing her, declaring his love, pulling her away from her friends is what love is. BUT IT’S NOT! Amelie had to leave her home, her school, her best friends and her boyfriend because her father got made redundant. They couldn’t have foreseen what would happen, but she wished she never moved. So her story follows a memory map, to relive, to understand what happened, why she feels like this and why this guy made her cry so much. So she visits the places she’s cried in public because of him.

EMOTIONAL! Emotions you will feel every single one in this story. Every time Amelie goes to another place and relives that moment leading up to her crying, it’s like your heart is shattering piece by piece. Until it’s completely broken and your still left picking up the pieces days after finishing the book. You feel anger towards her, how could she fall for someone like that. Reese is sleaziest as they come, they are manipulative, as well thinking ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU STUPID! HE’S USING YOU.’ And my favourite thought, ‘HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU!!! (Some classic Holly Bourne caps writing. Love it!) It easy saying this as the person looking in from the outside, just like her friends. It’s hard to have any favourite characters when Reese pretty much ruined that by isolating her. The one person who I felt for was Alfie, her first love, the boyfriend and best friend she had to leave behind. (I was an emotional wreck at that point.) Then there’s Mrs Clarke, her music teacher was there for Amelie. She just knew, she supported, she didn’t push but she encourage her to put her emotions into music, and she wasn’t going to let her best music student go either.

The Place I’ve Cried in Public is not a happy book, it’s a deeply revealing book that it strips your soul. That was quite dark but, what Holly Bourne is writing about by telling Amelie’s story is unnerving, confusing and it has that effect on you, questioning things, seeing things that you never realised were there. It’s like when Holly talks about Edward Cullen being creepy. At first I was like ‘Nooo, he’s not’ as I loved Twilight then but now when you look at it deeper you see it. After all vampires are predators in a way. It’s almost as if our brain or hearts don’t want to see it, we want to bury it… but then something in your body does react and we don’t listen to it enough. Our guts. No not for food, but our instincts, gut instincts. We have a tendency to ignore it because we believe our hearts instead. If something doesn’t feel right though… they are the ones screaming for us to listen to them. 

This is a new level of YA for Holly Bourne, The Place I’ve Cried in Public is a profoundly heart-wrenching, powerful and beautifully written new novel that takes your breath away. It sounds quite dark from my review but there is moments where you can’t help but laugh, cry and smile. This is Holly Bourne we are talking about after all!