No Place Like Here by Christina June: Review & Giveaway

Posted May 31, 2019 by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction in Giveaways (Ended), Reviews / 24 Comments

No Place Like Here by Christina June: Review & Giveaway

No Place Like Here by Christina June: Review & GiveawayNo Place Like Here by Christina June
Published by Blink on May 21, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Retellings
Pages: 288
Source: The Publisher, Blog Tour
My content rating: YA (Nothing more than kissing)
My rating:
4 Stars

Life leads you to unexpected places. Love brings you home.

Ashlyn Zanotti has big plans for the summer. She's just spent a year at boarding school and can't wait to get home. But when Ashlyn's father is arrested for tax evasion and her mother enters a rehab facility for "exhaustion," a.k.a. depression, her life is turned upside down.

The cherry on top? Ashlyn's father sends her to work with a cousin she doesn't even know at a rustic team-building retreat center in the middle of nowhere. A self-proclaimed "indoor girl," not even Ash's habit of leaving breadcrumb quotes—inspirational sayings she scribbles everywhere—can help her cope.

With a dangerously careless camp manager doling out grunt work, an overbearing father trying to control her even from prison, and more than a little boy drama to struggle with, the summer is full of challenges. And Ashlyn must make the toughest decision of her life: keep quiet and follow her dad's marching orders, or find the courage to finally stand up to her father to have any hope of finding her way back home.

From Christina June, author of It Started with Goodbye and Everywhere You Want to Be, comes No Place Like Here, a modern twist on Hansel and Gretel. 

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My Take copy3

Ashlyn has lived her life trying to measure up to her father’s expectations, but it’s always been a losing battle. So, even when he ends up in prison for tax evasion, he somehow still has a hold over her that she can’t quite break. She’s shipped off to work at a wilderness camp with her cousin—something she never would have chosen for herself—and she spends the summer wishing she could just go back home again. But the camp teaches her a few things about how capable she truly is, and she starts to realize that if she wants change, she’ll have to learn to speak up—as terrifying as that is for her.

I felt for Ashlyn, and I could relate to her inability to speak up and her desperate need to avoid conflict. And I think almost any teen will understand Ashlyn’s sense of powerlessness in a situation that feels out of her control. There’s a teensy bit of a love triangle involved in the book, so if you absolutely hate those, you’ve been warned—though honestly, in this case it’s more about Ashlyn growing and learning what type of guy she really wants in her life and why. So it’s less about the actual romantic decision than it is about Ashlyn figuring out how to take charge of her own life and not just let a guy lead her along.

One note: This book is billed as a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, but I’ll warn you that it’s a very loose retelling—you’ll have to really search for tenuous connections between the fairy tale and this story.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read with an MC I was rooting for. I’m hoping that June will revisit these characters in future books.

***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

About The Author

Christina June writes young adult contemporary fiction when she’s not writing college recommendation letters during her day job as a school counselor. She loves the little moments in life that help someone discover who they’re meant to become – whether it’s her students or her characters. Chris-tina is a voracious reader, loves to travel, and hopes to one day be bicoastal – the east coast of the US and the east coast of Scotland. She lives just outside Washington DC with her husband and daughter.

She is the author of IT STARTED WITH GOODBYE, EVERYWHERE YOU WANT TO BE, and the forthcoming NO PLACE LIKE HERE.

Author Links:

5 Finished copies of No Place Like Here + book poster (USA only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule

 

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24 responses to “No Place Like Here by Christina June: Review & Giveaway

  1. I’m listening to this one on audio RIGHT NOW — and enjoying it! Great review, Nicole. Can’t wait to see how it goes.

    Afoma| afomaumesi.com

  2. I was so excited to win the author’s recent giveaway of all three of her books, including this one. The covers are so cute! Contemporary/romance is not one of my go-to genres, but I’m going to give hers a try, and I KNOW my middle schoolers will gobble them up!

    • Did you find your way here via Goodreads? I don’t usually think to put in my Goodreads link that there’s a giveaway going on, so I’m curious if that’s the reason you decided to click over. (It’s always good to know if that’s useful information to have in the GR review–I just have to remember to go update it when the giveaway is over.)

  3. I agree, super loose retelling, but it was a charming story of finding one’s voice, mending relationships, and forgiveness. I would have loved an epilogue, because I wanted that romance to happen and was also interested in seeing how Ashlyn and her family made out.

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