All the Ways to Here (Future Leaders, #2) by Emily O’Beirne

All the Ways to Here by Emily O’Beirne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Book received from Ylva Publishing for an honest review

I am in the unfortunate situation wherein I enjoyed the book I read but am unsure what to actually write about said book. Edited to add: Oh, and yes you need to read the first book in the series before reading this book here.

Well, as I noted somewhere, I think in my status updates, this book, like the prior book in the series, has two point of views – Finn and Willa. Unlike in the prior book – which had the book split roughly evenly in half with the first half of the book seen through one point of view, and the second half seen through the other, this book alternated. Though not every other chapter – occasionally the reader would go from one chapter seen through Finn’s (or Willa’s) eyes to another chapter through their eyes. Other than my initial issue of trying to remember which character was which, and which personalities went with each character – which wasn’t helped by seeing the characters in a new setting – I much prefer the alternating POV instead of the half-and-half approach.

In the first book, Future Leaders of Nowhere, various teenagers, roughly around the age of 15 to … some age over 15, 18? I am not sure if there was just one age level or multiple, I forget now, and if multiple what the cut-off age was. Right, sorry, a group of teenagers, roughly around the age of 15, from various schools in Australia ended up at a leadership camp called ‘Camp Nowhere’. At that camp two young women from different schools, but the same city, meet and fell into . . . deep liking (which may or may not have been love).

In the second book their story, Willa and Finn’s story, continues. But now they are back in Melbourne, back amongst their fella school students, back among their families and are only able to see each other at certain times.

The second book is much more about family, and friends, and individual people’s places in the world, and what they actually wish to prioritize (is the almost thankless task of being student/school captain (what would be called student president in the USA), really worth it for the bit it adds to their resume and college admissions? Should an absentee father be given more of your time? How about a mother who works so much that she never seems to be home? Or a sister who gets on your nerves, or a brother who rarely talks, or … etc.). While, at the same time, the relationship/romance between Finn and Willa continues. Now that they are 16 . . . or 17. I’ve lost track of how old they were in book one and two; and book two picks up immediately after book one so it’s not like their age could advance massively, though time seems to fly in book two, and birthdays do occur.

This was a quite enjoyable slice of life, romance, young adult novel. Those looking for sex should look elsewhere, except for heavy passionate kissing.

Wow, I’ve not really said anything, eh? Well, as I said, I enjoyed the book but do not have much to say about it. I didn’t hate the book, nor love the book so deeply that I wish to immediately move to Australia and become a 16 year old living under the fear of whatever VCE is. (That comes up a lot – almost as much as ‘semi’s’ came up on Glee. Okay, it came up like three times, much less than semi’s on Glee.)

(“The Victorian Certificate of Education or VCE is the credential awarded to secondary school students who successfully complete high school level studies (year 11 and 12 or equivalent) in the Australian state of Victoria.” – hmm, so not only is it an Australian thing, it’s a local state thing. Heh. Though judging from a quick glance and seeing a QCE (for Queensland Certificate of Education, this is probably something nationwide. Must complicate moving between states, though. Potentially. I suppose. I really have no idea how ‘stuff’ like that works, though I know the UK has something also that pops up in British young adult books; also know there’s something like it in New York specifically, since I hear people talk about it occasionally – the closest I had to anything like whatever this ‘thing’ is would be AP classes, which you take, then take a test, if you pass the test you get college credit – which I did; though I think some of these ‘things’ are more geared to ‘pass or you don’t get a high school diploma’ type of thing. I prefer it being geared to possible college credit instead of having one bad day and not being able to graduate high school due to fucking up some tests – see, I’ve no clue what this VCE thing is about, I don’t even know if there are, in fact, tests – heh, I just gazed blankly at a website for the VCE thing and I still don’t know what it is about. I think I might be dim. http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/...).

Rating: 4.68

November 8 2017



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