Here we go. I loved The Infinite Noise, but A Neon Darkness was one of the most dismal, depressing books I’ve ever read. Some Faraway Place was solidly in the middle, not my favorite but I didn’t hate it.

I don’t know if Rose was intentionally autism coded but I definitely got the vibes that she was, which was cool. I liked how passionate she was and how she had real, genuine struggles that had nothing to do with the plot but made her feel more full as a character.

The biggest complaint I had with this book was the weird faux social media stuff. Half the story was told via “Readit” (Reddit) and “Mumblr” (Tumblr) posts, complete with their unique formats and the “Stucky” (Steve Rogers X Bucky Barnes) fanfic that Emily was writing. It didn’t flow at all, and it felt forced and fake. Trying to read a book in Reddit format was unsettling and unpleasant.

Also, the timelines between the books didn’t line up at all. When I was reading books one and two in this series I was of the understanding that they took place simultaneously, or at least within the same few years. This book takes place shortly after book one, but over ten years after book two, and the characters from both books had a significant amount of backstory that never happened in either of their books. I know these books are based off of a podcast series I haven’t listened to, and maybe that was explained in the podcast, but just reading the books alone doesn’t make sense.

If this book had just been about Rose and her struggles learning to control her ability, her relationship with Emily and her family, and if it was written in normal novel form instead of faux social media, I would’ve loved it. But between all of the characters from the first two books suddenly appearing with backstories that didn’t line up with their books it and the social media formatting, I didn’t enjoy reading this book and I don’t plan to read any more from this author.

I love this book so much !! All the characters, the plot was so good , the cover js also so good ! Definitely recommend it you

I had the honor of getting a physical ARC of the first book in the series from Lauren herself back in 2019, and I’m a huge fan of the original The Bright Sessions podcast and its spinoffs, so I was super super excited to read Some Faraway Place early!! This one is extra special to me - there aren’t many queer Jewish characters in YA (let alone plus-sized queer Jewish characters), and they definitely don’t have many opportunities to be on the book cover, so when I heard Rose was getting her own book and then later saw the cover, I was just so happy. Needless to say, I was just as happy (if not more so) when I read it : )

Rose doesn’t get a lot of “screen” time in the original podcast, so getting a more in-depth look into her story and her ability was awesome!! It was especially cool getting to see her gradual discovery of her ability and how her relationship with her family changes as a result. Out of the three TBS novels, this one is definitely the most jam packed - not only does it include Rose, her dreamworlds, and her developing relationship with Emily, but it also includes characters from the previous two novels, some more significantly than others. But, because everything in this universe is connected in more ways than we will ever realize, it all works together well. There is a lot of grey morality in Some Faraway Place, and it definitely got darker at times than I was expecting, but all of those moments were perfectly balanced with the lighter aspects of the book - Rose’s relationship with Emily, her love for her cooking, her humor, her pleasant dreamscapes, etc.

Another aspect I loved was the variety of narration - most of the book is standard prose, but there are also social media posts and letters sprinkled throughout as well. They reveal important pieces of the characters and allow the reader to see some of the novel’s events from other perspectives… and they have so many easter eggs and fandom references, which was super fun for me since I know the podcast so well : ) But do not fear - people will still be able to enjoy and understand everything even without having listened to the podcast.

Lauren Shippen is one of the most incredible writers, and Some Faraway Place is a perfect sendoff and love letter to the TBS universe. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to read it early, and I’m so excited for everyone to get to read it in September : )

I want to talk other people into reading this. I didn't realize when I first picked it up that it is part of a larger series. And you know what, that doesn't matter. It fully stands on it's own as a little beacon of beauty and comfort. Rose is the only member of her immediate family without some type of super power. She's given up on being a late bloomer and has come to grips with being the odd one out via being the only normal one. She's going into a career she loves, she finds a cute girl. Then she winds up with a super power anyway and has a *lot* to process. It's a story about learning to love the person you are today, even if they are different than the person yesterday or the person you long to be tomorrow. God, I just loved it so much. There are a few different perspectives in the story, and they all play very well together. It would be so easy to have Rose go fully angst and not talk to people, let that be the driver, but Shippen is a better author than that. She let's Rose open up, let's her be vulnerable, which let's readers do the same in their own lives. This is a comforting book, wrapped up as a coming of age story. Worth the read, shoot, worth a reread.

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.

Ok, so. Let’s get into this. I really enjoyed the book. It started great and pulled me in, towards the middle I started to feel like it started to drag, but it picked up again really quickly.
I’m terms of characters I was so happy, I feel like Rose was such a great protagonist in the way that she was so relatable. Something about someone struggling to connect to people able to go into peoples subconscious was such an interesting concept. On top of that the addiction of avoiding the real world to get wrapped up in a fake/fictional world was a really relatable topic, especially to a lot of readers.
Not being able to connect to the people around you was such a great topic that I think the author did really well. Knowing what you want to say but never really being able to hit the mark, and the frustration that comes with it.
In terms of representation we got queer Jewish main character, Latina love interest, and a bunch of poc and lgbt side characters.
While the book is the third in a series and a spin off of the podcast, I feel that it can be a stand alone. While you won’t get some of the character insight, I do think it may add a lot more to the mystery.

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