Grade 11 student June and her best friend Jess are inseparable…that is, until they both get “expelled” from school after getting caught drinking at a school dance. While Jess gets to stay at the school due to a generous donation from her parents, June is forced to move miles away to live with her Oma and attend the all-girls school where her Oma teaches. June misses Jess terribly until she discovers her love for photography and starts to make new friends; Kitty and Claire (a couple from her physics class) and Sam (Claire’s cousin, an amateur photographer, and the only boy who attends a class at the all-girls school). As a result, Jess starts to pull away and June starts to seriously question her own life: why did she and Jess drink so much? Were her and Jess just friends or were they something more? Why doesn’t Jess seem to like June’s family and new friends (and vice versa)? Can she be into Sam and Jess at the same time? Has moving to Virginia changed her for the better or for worse? And can she and Jess ever regain the closeness that they once had?
This book really reminded me of You Don’t Live Here by Robyn Schneider, so if you liked that book (or really any of Schneider’s books), you should definitely check out Any Place But Here. This book deals with themes such as LGBTQ+, friendship, first loves, coming of age and growing up, and identity. The main take away for me was that you need to be true to yourself and that change doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Reading about June and Sam’s photography classes and assignments was enjoyable; it was interesting to read about how they learned to use vintage cameras with film and how they developed their photographs using a darkroom. The detailed descriptions of the settings were fantastic, especially Claire’s elaborate dorm room ceiling which was decorated with fairy lights to resemble the night sky, and the beautiful river across the street from Oma’s condo and beside June’s school. It was also great to see that all the characters mentioned in this novel were very accepting of anyone who identified as (or came out as) gay or bisexual; that, in and of itself, makes this book a worthwhile read in my opinion.
One critique for Any Place But Here would be that the plot mostly stayed in the same place with June going to school with Kitty and Claire, taking photos with Sam, eating dinner with her Oma, and talking to her family and Jess on the phone, so there didn’t seem to be a lot of dramatic rising and falling action. The plot mainly focuses on June’s increasing awareness of her romantic feelings towards Jess and June’s (mostly) inner struggle to determine her sexual orientation. It would have been nice if the action rose a little more with a greater climax and potentially leading to a more fulfilling ending to June’s story.
Overall, Any Place But Here was a relatively quick and enjoyable read!
Any Place But Here is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 4th 2021.
Will you be picking up Any Place But Here? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Morgan Matson meets Sarah Dessen in this emotional story about toxic friendships, new family, unexpected romance, and finding the place you belong.
Seventeen-year-old June can’t think of anything worse than being separated from her best friend, Jess. But at the end of her first semester of junior year she’s expelled for drinking at a school dance. It’s bad enough being expelled, but her parents decide to send her away to live with her grandmother in Virginia and attend the all-girls boarding school where her grandmother teaches. Miles away from home, her life, and most importantly, Jess, June is devastated.
She still talks to Jess every day and counts down the days until she can come back home for the summer. But as she befriends new girls at school, and meets Sam, who she is instantly drawn to, life in Virginia starts to feel more real. Her relationships with her friends, grandmother, and Sam get stronger as she learns more about them and herself through her photography assignments. At the same time, she starts to question her friendship with Jess as Jess pulls away.
Can June hold onto the past while also exploring her new future?
