Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

No Perfect Places shows how teen twins Alex and Olly try to deal with the grief of their father’s passing and their changing dynamic. Add in a secret half sibling that Olly is trying to keep secret from Alex and it’s messy.

Based on that summary, there should be a lot in this book to sink your teeth in too… And maybe that was the problem for me. There was just a little too much. The conflicts seemed to compound on one another without there being a breath.

I had a bit of a struggle with this one. It felt a little all over the place for me and I was trying to focus on the narrative, but it just kept feeling just slightly out of reach. I’ve enjoyed Salvatore’s writing in the past, but this one left me feeling rather emotionless. I wish it had been more for me. Maybe the next one will.

Sorry, it just wasn't something that I could get on board with. The characters were strong and I liked them a lot, but the premise was a little flawed. It was difficult for me to see the driving force behind a long lost sibling deciding to take a summer job at the place that his siblings worked, without making sure that it was well thought through or that it would be a good idea. I would have liked more focus on the action group and that side of the story than the rest. it felt liked it skimmed a lot of things that could have been deepened.

4 / 5 ⭐️'ˢ

“No Perfect Places” by Steven Salvatore

📕 Edition: ARC Hardcover & eBook

This delves into the complexities of family, grief, and the burden of hidden truths. Salvatore's storytelling is both heart-wrenching and beautifully crafted, making it a compelling read from start to finish.

The story revolves around twins Alex and Olly, who have already endured the hardship of their father's imprisonment, only to face further challenges when he unexpectedly passes away. The revelation of a long-held secret – a half-brother named Tyler – adds layers of complexity to their already fragile family dynamics.

Salvatore excels in portraying the characters' struggles and growth. Alex's descent into self-destructive behavior and Olly's internal conflict about revealing the truth create a tension that keeps you engaged. The character development is authentic, and their emotional journeys are relatable to anyone who has grappled with family secrets and loss.

The lakeside town setting adds a vivid backdrop to the narrative, enhancing the story's atmosphere and sense of place. As the secrets unravel, Salvatore masterfully explores themes of forgiveness, reconciliation, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Thank you @NetGalley, Steven Salvatore and @Bloomsburybooksus for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Beautiful and thought-provoking, I was not prepared for this hard-hitting story. No Perfect Places by Steven Salvatore is a poetic telling of grief, family, love, and loss. This is NOT a romance novel: it is a hard read, but a good one.

Meet Alex. She does everything to escape her grief (and feelings in general) since her father was imprisoned, and then passed away, becoming a ghost. Meet Olly. He is trying to fight the rage welling up inside of him, as he lives with immense guilt for hiding his father’s secret. Meet Tyler. He never met his real dad but he is getting to know his siblings, twins named Alex and Olly. Will one of these siblings self-destruct before they’re able to see the light in the darkness?

As a reader, you need to open your heart while reading this story. The three siblings beg for you to care for them and see them to the end of their journey. As someone who lost their father last year, the premise of how when someone is alive, there are infinite opportunities to fix what broke, but once they're gone, so is their potential to make things right.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Children's Books for a temporary e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I am always amazed when authors are able to write complex characters, with complex lives and yet still leave me with some sort of hope.

This novel is raw and heavy, and it will make you emotional. The characters are frustrating, but in a way that feels realistic, and it only matters because you become so emotionally invested in their story.

Excellent writing.

This book ripped my heart out. Such a beautiful story and told so well. I love these characters. It’s rare that I encounter characters that I connect with so much. This is a story that will stick with me and I will plead for others to read.

This is a YA contemporary about twins whose incarcerated father dies and leaves behind a life-changing secret. This book is full of joy, hardship, queer love, grief and so much heart.

Dual narrated between twins Alex and Olly, the two are dealing with their father’s death and crime in very different ways. We see how the trauma of what their father did seeps into their life in unexpected ways. I really liked how this touched on the topic of incarcerated parents and how the unseen victims are their children who were left behind.

This was such a good book. The relationships in this book are messy and complicated and we get to live in that instability throughout. It was hard, but so realistic. People aren’t perfect, as much as we wish to be. I really came to love the twins, Tyler and all their friends. We also get a queer MC who is happily in love. While there’s a question of whether they’ll be together when they separate for college, through the time in the book these two are always together and their relationship is steady. I love seeing established relationships continue to flourish.

Then there’s the ending. I was a MESS! I cried so many times. The growth and emotion we see through our MCs was so touching. Olly’s film at the end? Bawling. I want to see this film brought to life. And when Tyler told them “You made it out”, I fucking lost it. Overall, I can’t recommend this book enough!

No Perfect Places was, for lack of a better word, perfect.
Imperfectly perfect. The characters were messy in the best way.
Steven has this way of creating flawed characters, that you can’t help but love deeply, as if they were your own best friends. I found myself needing to keep reading to make sure Alex and Olly were going to be okay.

It takes some real magic and passion to write something that shines through so strongly that the author was meant to write that book. I felt that with this one from the first page, all the way to the end.

Lots of content warnings, some that stick out to me are death of a parent, drug and alcohol abuse, grief, abusive relationship, & incarceration.

This book covers many issues and has many trigger warnings. This book was well written and I am glad to have read but definitely go into this book prepared for the things that happen in this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read and review.

I found this story just so fascinating to read. There were so many thoughts and idea brought up and I just reading all of them. Sometimes I like reading books that make me think and reconsider a few things, and this book did that very well.

I really loved how this book portrayed family relationships and everything that can go wrong with them and all thats hard to manage. I felt like it was a super relatable portrayal of fractured family relationships and I really enjoyed reading it.

This wasn’t the lighest read, but it made me think and then it made me think about those things I was thinking about already, which is always a good thing in my book.

I have always been and forever will be a champion of YA lit and this book deepens my love and is a prime example of why. It has everything a reader could desire in a YA novel. We have a coming-of-age story that focuses on the relationship between siblings navigating the aftermath of their incarcerated father’s death. Each sibling was written so well that my heart broke and leapt and cheered with every page and emotion our main characters felt. It was refreshing to read about siblings who have each others best interests at heart as each tries to break free from the prisons that they are currently trapped in deep within their minds. There is some romance in it but it takes a back seat, however it should be noted that the love between Olly and Khal is so beautiful, supportive, and desirable! High five to role modeling healthy relationships in YA lit.

I loved all the metaphors Salvatore used throughout his book including caves, boats, balloons, and more. It was a wonderful way for readers to really visualize the in-depth issues that Salvatore was writing about, including incarceration, the corrupt justice system, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms and escapes, abandonment and neglect, gaslighting, abusive relationships, and SO MUCH MORE! Salvatore made many statements about injustices throughout and I was so grateful for it.

I think this book is especially special and written for children of incarcerated parents. It really stresses the point that we are not our parents and that we don’t have to follow in their footsteps. Parents make mistakes and oftentimes their children are the ones that suffer for it. But this book shows that children in these situations can grow and move forward and that having and seeking out a good support system is crucial.

I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s beautifully written and holds reader’s attention captive. It’s a little bit naughty, a little bit pure, and perfectly perfect in all its imperfections!

As a child my father was in and out of the prison system. So reading this story and relating with Alex and Olly really did something for me. Painting the picture of how sometimes you want to numb yourself from the pain and or feelings of not having that parent there. Everything that Alex was going through I felt needed to be told because we don’t always think about what different people experience when they all go thru similar things. I highly recommend this read and if I could I would rate it 10 stars.

Frustrating and half baked. This book kept my fight or flight mode on high alert throughout the whole story, making me feel burnt out and disconnected before the story was even over.

Each character had their own issues and for the most part, they were fairly relatable issues, but where the daunting feelings came from was the consistent bickering and fighting between the twins that circled around and around until I was dizzy. The most of it came from Alex. She consistently did the wrong thing, seemingly on purpose and for no reason. I found it really hard to even care about her character and struggled with hoping she was ok in the end and wanting her to disappear all together.

My favorite scene was where Olly is taking to his dad in prison. This was the first time we met these characters and it set the tone for the story. It also made me realize how fractured Olly and Alex were already.

Favorite Quote:
"I exhale. “Where do I begin?”" This is the final line of the book. Very powerful.

This book was a 3 star for me. The frustration with the characters was too much for me and took away from the story that was struggling to unfold.

After reading so many other reviews of this book, I realize I'm in the minority here and although this author seems to have a large following of dedicated readers, this read didn't really do it for me. Not to say I wouldn't try reading another book by Salvatore in the future.

I think this is my favorite book of Steven Salvatore's so far. I've loved them all but this one just really hit hard.

I think my favorite part of this book is that it isn't a coming out story and it doesn't revolve around one of the main characters' queerness. Now don't get me wrong because coming out stories and queer-centric stories absolutely are important and have a special place in my heart and need to be read and written, but I also love to see stories where queer people are just going through life and dealing with challenges.

No Perfect Places is about Alex and Olly who are twins and struggling with the incarceration of their father. Olly learns that they have a brother named Tyler but his dad doesn't want him to tell his sister Alex. This leads to a lot of secrets and grief and communal disappointment. When tragedy strikes Olly, Alex, and Tyler have to figure out whether or not there's a future for the three of them as siblings.

This book is on the heavier side and deals with a lot of serious and complex topics including but not limited to domestic abuse within relationships, the incarceration of a parent, the death of a parent, drug and alcohol abuse, homophobia and suicidal ideation.

So while this book doesn't center on queer related issues, it is still incredibly queer. We've got a queer main character and multiple queer secondary characters. There are some discussions about being closeted and how to be safe in public as a queer person.

At its core though, I believe this book to be about forgiveness. Forgiveness of others and of ourselves. It's about learning to allow both yourself and those around you the grace to exist without being perfect and to allow space for reconnection and growth. It isn't always possible, but it can be within reach if we allow. Alex and Olly must learn to forgive their father, Alex has to grapple with Olly and Tyler keeping such a huge secret, Tyler discovers whether or not he can make space for two siblings, and Olly needs to give himself the grace never allotted him.

This one is HEAVY (so many trigger warnings), but I will remember it for a long time. I loved the relationship between Ollie and Alex - the highs and lows and all of the messiness. I loved how it highlighted the poor choices we all can make for the sake of coping and surviving tragedy.....and how those choices impact those close to us. I loved how the characters worked to heal (even though it does seem to wrap up just a bit too nicely for the depth of trauma they were enduring). There's not too much more I can say without giving spoilers, but if you want a novel with strong characters that you will love but will make you cry, then pick this one up.

Oh my lanta! What a brilliantly deep, and absolutely heartbreaking story! I LOVED the focus of the relationship with siblings (there of course was a little side romance sprinkled in which I appreciated!) but the fact that the main focus was Olly and Alex and then Tyler had me IN MY FEELS. This author never ceases to amaze me, they sprinkle in so much diversity and activism in their stories, they not only make you feel but also THINK (which we all need to be doing) I will always champion this author, and this book is another must read!

Trigger Warnings: prison, marijuana, cursing, death of a parent, heart attack, underage drinking, grief, wake/funeral, drugs, homophobia, violence, past car accident, overdose, dead body, coming out, manipulative/controlling relationship, emotional abuse, sex

Representation: Twins, Gay, Nonbinary, they/them pronouns, Lesbian, Drag

No Perfect Places is a young adult contemporary about twins Alex and Olly Brucke who lost everything except their strong bond with each other when their father was imprisoned for embezzlement. After their dad dies unexpectedly, the twins start to fracture. Alex is spiraling, skipping classes to get drunk or high. Olly is struggling with a secret his dad ordered him to keep: they have a secret half-brother, Tyler.

So when Tyler shows up in their lakeside town for the summer, hoping to get to know his siblings, Olly hides the truth from Alex. But as Alex and Tyler start to form a friendship, the lies become harder to juggle. If they can’t confront their father’s past and fix their relationship, Olly and Alex each risk losing two siblings forever.

This is a heavy story. The topics are very contemporary and the writing style is hard to read so often. The book as a whole is sad but there is so much growth by the end. The ending is not happy but definitely fills you with hope for these characters. The characters are so flawed and grieving. Their pain is very real and relatable. While I never had a parent in prison, I think many of us can relate to parents who don’t meet our expectations. Be warned, this isn’t a romance. There is love and various relationships, but they are not the point of the story. Overall, I enjoyed this book despite the lack of HEA.

Thank you NetGalley, Bloomsbury and Steven for providing me with an ARC of No Perfect Places for review.

This is a solid read. So many of the LGBTQIA+ NetGalley books I get approved for are YA Trope filled Queer RomCom's. For some reason I went into this story with similar expectations but that not what this book is at ALL. This is like a gritty coming of age story but with a Queer MC and Queer supporting characters.

No Perfect Places is a beautiful story dealing with so many heavy topics - death, intergenerational incarceration, over representation of POC within the criminal justice system, family violence, substance abuse and the fact that in reality our parents are people too.

I loved Olly and Khal's relationship. I loved the two of them. I loved that both of them carried trauma but they were able to support the other. To care for each other through pain and not contribute to it. Clearly we mainly see the growth of Olly as one of our MC's but it isn't about being Queer. It is important to remember that Queer kids have to deal with the same life shit as Hetro kids on top of dealing with the shit that Hetro kids and adults place on them.

Now Alex, this was a journey. As a lawyer in Family Violence/AOD/Homelessness, I just wanted to help her soooooo much. I HATE, HATE, HATE that this continues to be prolific throughout our society and particularly continues to exist in teenage relationships. Too much of Alex's story is attributed to shitty men. Shitty cis straight white dudes. God. I enjoyed how Alex's path came together in the end. I appreciate that her giving spirit found a community.

TL;DR - Gritty coming of age story for Twins with a strange dynamic and not a Queer Love story.

No Perfect Places follows twins Alex and Olly Brucke whose father was incarcerated for embezzlement. As a result of this Alex and Olly became closer. However, when their father unexpectedly dies everything changes. Alex starts spiraling and Olly has a secret that his dad asked him to keep, they have a half-brother named Tyler. Tyler and Olly become close. When Tyler shows up in their lakeside town for the summer Olly realizes that he has to tell Alex about him. Each of the siblings is forced to confront the past in order to move forward. Or they will risk losing each other forever. 

If you know me you know that I am a huge fan of Steven Salvator's books. If you have not read any books by them please do yourself a favor and read them. I have never been let down by their books. This was such a good story. Warning though it will make you cry ( but their books always make me cry). Everything about this story was so moving. This book I think was a little more serious than their other books. But had such an important message. I can not wait to reread this one. I highly suggest.