Kasie West writes some of the most touching, soft young adult contemporaries, and PLACES WE’VE NEVER BEEN did not disappoint. Old best friends reconnect on a big joint-family trip, where they also learn about bigger family secrets and try to plan their future lives. It hits some emotional highs while also being a fun and thoroughly enjoyable read.

"Good. So we're on the same page." I wasn't even sure we were in the same book.

Is it a second chance romance when it's unrequited young love, forced into close proximity for a family road trip after years of being apart? This tropetastic tale was the perfect title for kicking off summer vibes and the book immediately held a piece of my heart. Norah & Sklyer used to be best friends and it immediately made me nostalgic for the ease of childhood friendships, while simultaneously reminding me how hard goodbyes can be.

West captures the family dynamics so well, with two families mixed together for a multi-week trip, it was easy to fall into a rhythm with the teasing and connections that made me feel like I was on the trip along with them. While trying to reconnect, I really enjoyed how art was at the center of their reconciliation. From their childhood of drawing and passing notes back and forth to Norah's desire to go to school for game design, I found it easy to get caught up in their dreams for the future and what was going on between both of their families, how they were there for one another.

Travel along as the main characters face their past and gear up for the future away at college, you won't regret picking up this sweet young adult contemporary romance.

Are you still friends with any of your childhood besties? This book made me want to load up my family into an RV & get to traveling, maybe I need to convert one into a bookhouse on wheels and hit the road!

After enjoying Sunkissed, West had cemented a place on my tbr shelves for must-have summer young adult, thank you to NetGalley + Delacorte Press for the advance reader copy to read and review!

Former childhood best friends Skyler and Norah are reunited on a combined family RV road trip for 3 weeks. Despite not having seen each other for years and living separate lives, Norah feels it deep in her bones that she and Skyler will just pick up where they left off. To her surprise though, he’s not who she remembers, and the next 3 weeks are going to be torture… until nostalgia and strolling down memory lane open up new doors to their once friendship.

I love Kasie West’s books! They are feel-good YA romances that make me swoon and smile. I loved the setting, the whole summer road trippin’ forced proximity with your former childhood best friend. Realizing they have more than friendly feelings for each other always gets me! I also enjoyed the sites, the secrets that were being kept, and the sweet, tender moments shared between Skyler and Norah when flipping back to memories from their childhood.

Though this was not my favorite Kasie West book, it was still enjoyable and surprisingly profound. The love story was honestly just okay, but what really stood out to me were the family relationships and strong friendships. A quick and fun road trip read!

I have always considered Kasie West to be the queen of sweet and wholesome YA love stories. Some of her latest books have been a bit disappointing, but with Places We’ve Never Been she’s back in full force!

The story follows Norah and Skyler, two former childhood best friends now being forced on a road trip with their families. They haven’t seen each other in 4 years, and the happy reunion doesn’t go as planned. Then the story takes lots of twists and turns in a true rom com style. Norah and Skyler are the heart of the story, and luckily both are really likable characters. Sure, they are not always doing the best choices, but there’s more often than not a good reason behind it.

The book starts out with the enemies to lovers trope, but slowly evolves to something more as the story goes on. The book was a very easy read with a soft love story, and a bit of sadness on the side. The ending was a little abrupt, and would have loved it to be a bit more fleshed out. But it was an enjoyable read that I had a nice time with.

Whoa! What a ride. It was very fast-paced. The writing style kept me hooked and I didn't find myself losing any interest. I enjoyed getting to know each of the characters and how real the story felt. The author did a great job painting the setting, so it was easy for me to visualize the scene played out before me. I recommend giving this one a chance!

Kasie West is one of my favorite authors, and “Places We've Never Been” did not disappoint! Norah is excited to see her best friend from her childhood, Skyler, and go on a road trip adventure with her mom, brother, Skyler’s mom, sister, and brother even though it has been a few years since they have seen each other. Norah’s enthusiasm for the reunion is quickly diminished when Skyler acts as if she doesn’t exist and they don’t have any shared history. As they journey from site to site, Norah is determined to not let Skyler’s behavior bother her and focus on her art school interview at the end of their trip… but being near Skyler again is dredging up feelings for him that she is seeing in an all new light. Supporting characters and beautiful scenery along with several real life problems make for a thoughtful and enjoyable read!

Kasie West is YA royalty and this did not disappoint. Young friends, young dreams, and young love take a cross country RV trip. It's not so sweet that it hurts your teeth, and it has a great mixture of family and friendships.

Kasie West feels like your most comfortable sweater: you put it on, and just breathe a sigh of relief.

I've liked West's other books for the same reason I like this one: kind and loving family and friends, and a easy-going romance plot. This one has the added adventure of an RV road trip. Norah and Skyler were friends since they were kids, but then he moved away. They both changed in each other's absence, and it's not easy for them to reconnect at first when they are teenagers.

Skyler was a jerk at the beginning of this book. It takes a while to warm up to him. And Norah doesn't do herself any favors either, but eventually you come to understand how they have been misunderstanding each other. Their reconciliation is very sweet. There's another plot line/mystery happening here with one of the moms on the trip, as well as an older brother. I'm not sure I agree with the way the mom handles illness and keeping secrets from her kids. That's one place the book could be more developed.

If you're looking for a coming of age romance, this has a lot of light moments in it. It also has a good discussion of what it means to want to be a creative person since Norah wants to design video games, and Skyler is a good artist. There's a lot here for teens to connect with and like.
Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book.

Norah and Skyler were best friends until, at thirteen, Skyler moves away and their relationship slowly dissolves to silence. Their mothers spring a road trip on their kids and the reunion is not exactly what Norah hopes for.
Put me in an RV as a teen with Skyler and I would have been a happy girl. He's so sweet, earnest and gets put through the ringer over and over. I kind of wish that the hardships would have been shared a little more equally. Secrets abound and with it confusion. Through it all is a possibility of a sweet reconciliation and romance between Norah and Skyler.
I've read several of Kasie's books in the past. This one sits right about in the middle for me if I were to rank them. Fans of Kasie will find a lot to enjoy throughout.
Thank you to Delacorte Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts in this review are my own.

This was a cute book. Friends to more with serious issues interwoven with the backdrop of an RV trip. I think there could have been more fleshing out of the feelings between the two leads but I understood why they felt how they felt. It was a fun read and I look forward to more from this author.

A fun road trip YA full of beautiful scenery, secrets, and second chances. I really enjoyed all the times when Norah was absolutely and 100% herself, rather than filtering herself for whoever she was with. It was so nice to see her grow and become more confident in her own self. Overall, a good, clean YA read!

Thanks to NetGalley for my e-arc of this book. All opinions here are my own.

I want to thank Delacorte Press and Netgalley for supplying me with an ebook of this title to review and give my honest feedback.
I'm always a Kasie West fan. Her stories are fun, flirty, romantic, and realistic. There's just something feel good about her writing and what she chooses to show us with her characters.
This one is. friends, to enemies, to lovers trope. Also a second chances trope. And it was fun to watch the progression. I especially liked that the drama actually came from the male character's brooding rather than the female character's. There was no pining on her part, at least not until she realized she felt more than what she thought she did.
To add to the tension, these characters are thrown together on a road trip across the country planned by their mothers. The intent behind the trip is revealed a bit later in the book, though I figured out what kind of turn that would eventually take. But that didn't take away from the story of how these two people who spent their childhoods together and were torn apart, were able to rekindle an old friendship and turn it into something more.
I loved that West did not end the book as you would have liked for it to end, all tied up in this nice little bow. There were still obstacles to overcome and she made sure we saw that.
I will say there were a lot of secrets that had to be revealed and I wasn't sure how the author would do it in an authentic way, but she managed to pull it off.
Overall I enjoyed this sweet, fast, cute, and a little bit sad of a read. I'm excited for whatever the queen of contemporary YA brings next!

3/5 stars
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I hate to say it, but I think I’ve grown out of Kasie West books. I had decent expectations for this one, but I just found it cringy. Our main character was super basic, and so was her love interest. The plot twists feel flat, and the plot overall felt a bit…nonexistent. I feel so sad that I’m rating Places We’ve Never Been so low, but I didn’t enjoy it that much and I really disliked the romance. The one aspect I enjoyed was the road trip, and all the places they went to. I’d recommend this if you want a quick rom com, but don’t expect much in terms of the plot.!

Norah and Skyler were best friends until his family moved to Ohio. Now she's Instagram posting her in-crowd friend group while preparing for an interview at her dream school. On the way is a fun-filled family road trip with her previous BFF, however, this will NOT be the reunion Norah was expecting. Skyler has changed, and maybe not for the better. These once gold-level best friends struggle to communicate and understand each other after so many years apart, which leads to some very awkward interactions. Follow this friends to enemies to lovers romance as secrets are uncovered and these two try to remember who they once were.

This book was so sweet! I loved the family dynamics and the interactions of both family's siblings. The characters were believable and relatable each with their own issues and challenges. The road-trip locations were very detailed and descriptive which made me feel like I was there along with the characters, even though I have never been to any of the places listed. New characters that were introduced only helped to move the story along and didn't distract from the main plot line. I flew through the digital copy of this book and enjoyed every minute of it!

2.5 rounded up.

There was some really cute stuff in this book (Norah and Skyler's childhood friends to romance storyline, the road trip itself, and Skyler's little sister, Paisley), but there was a lot that fell flat for me. I thought the pacing was really odd. There was a big reveal that came a little over halfway through the book, which is to be expected, but I felt like there was no resolution except for in the epilogue, and even then it was just one quick line. The ending also felt really abrupt and odd. I didn't really feel any connection to the characters, and I really did not like Norah's mom at all.

Overall, I can absolutely see why some people will love this book, but this one was not for me.

This was such a sweet and swoon worthy ya. I loved the road trip setting and the character growth. My only complaint is it was a bit long.

3.5 stars

Norah and Skyler were childhood best friends, and they haven't seen each other in years. When their families get together for a summer road trip, the reunion is not all Norah hoped for.

This was a cute story but not my favorite from Kasie West. The miscommunication trope was kicked up to the max; everybody had a secret: Skyler, the moms, Norah's brother, Norah's best friend. I understand that teens are still learning how to communicate but this was really frustrating to read. The ending was also a little anticlimactic, but I can appreciate a low-stakes story. Sometimes that's just what you need for an escape, so I can't take off too many stars for that.

I think that the audience for this would be on the lower end of YA, probably 13-15, which is a good thing. Many YA books now are following the same formula, so this was a nice change of pace. I also liked that Norah was popular and had friends and that it was portrayed as being ok. The popular kids aren't necessarily bad or mean.

Overall a very cute book!

I adore Places We've Never Been by Kasie West. I love Kasie West books because she writes really authentic and engaging teenage characters. This book is no exception to that. I fell in love with Norah and Skyler. The reason why I'll always recommend Kasie West books to others is that there is always a good balance of love story, coming of age and a family/friendship in all of her books. Kasie West once again proves to me that she knows how to write a compelling contemporary teen novel full of heart.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children's- Delacorte Press for providing me with an ARC of Places We've Never Been in exchange for an honest review. This review will be posted on Goodreads/Amazon upon publication of the book.

I have read almost all of Kasie West's other books and this one is just as good!
Having the characters be traveling together makes it so they are unable to get away from each other as easily forcing them to face what they are dealing with internally making this a great forced proximity romance. This book also explores what it is like to reconnect with a friend after years apart when both individuals have changed (even if it is just a little).
Some of the twists seemed a little predictable but others caught me by surprise! Overall I loved the book!