I received this book to give an honest review.

I was really amazed at this story and the way the ending came about. Sadie has severe anxiety and her best friend Aaron helps calm her down even though he has a memory issue. The two are perfect best friends and you just hope that they fall for each other because you just know that has to happen right?

Well things happen to change over the summer Sadie has to live a "normal" life one that doesn't revolve around Aaron and Aaron has to start writing things down so he can remember what he needs to do on a daily basis. 

When another world is what I would call it comes into both Sadie and Aaron's life it seems like it is too good to be true, it honestly can not be real right? Isola Fiona just seems like a very amazing place to be at because no matter what issues you had before they are all gone when you enter. The only downside is you can not stay forever or can you? 

I loved that in this world Aaron can say how he feels for Sadie and remember when he returns because once back in the real world he doesn't remember which is quite sad. 

We see how Sadie juggles her new life while Aaron struggles with not only his memory lose but the issues going on at home. No wonder Isola Fiona seems like the perfect place to be.

The characters were pretty good and I loved how the author really captured how they struggled with the things they had to deal with on a day to day basis. 

There are a few things I wish the author would have dived in more on were the world of Isola Finoa we got just a taste on who would have I guess invented this world but why did he exactly? I felt that the author could have elaborated more. 

Why didn't Sadie really try to explore Isola Fiona?  It was like she mostly seemed to stay in one spot until Finoa had her go through the forest.

(This book was previously called Powered, but I've read the new Alloy Entertainment edition which is called City of Legends. I don't know if there are any other changes between the two editions)

City of Legends was a conflicted read for me. At the one hand, I really wanted to like this superhero novel, at the other hand, there were quite a lot of things that just didn't make sense and I couldn't overlook all of them.

Maci is on the brink of becoming a Hero, for which she has trained almost her entire life. She's a Super, which means she has an extra circulation running outside of the body (Thanks evolution!). This was caused once by some kind of radiation in a cave. You know, the kind of radiation that adds extra genes to your genome. (#PuttingTheFictionInScienceFiction) The society is quite strange as in the Heroes do Superhero stuff protecting the normal humans, who are in reality looked upon as third class civilians. I still don't know if I actually like the world this story is set in.

Although Maci already has some anger issues, she's told at the most inconvenient of times that she once had a twin. This is terrible of course, for it is know that from every Super-twins born, one will turn evil, a Villain. For Maci, it's only downhill form there.

Man, Maci was an annoying girl at times. I get that maybe she was a bit upset or confused at the things she finds out, but she takes it to a whole new level. I really hope she gets a bit more bearable in the next books, or I might be cheering for the Villains in the end.

It was a fast read and besides the forced romance thing that apparently just had to be there, it was quite enjoyable. I'm still curious to find out what happens next.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This will not affect my opinion of the book. 

Anxiety rules Sadie's life. She is a slave to the pills that she is supposed to take once a day, but many days she end up swallowing three or more and the panic still haunts her. 

Aaron does what the pills cannot--make her feel normal, even though he is far from normal himself. Sadie has anxiety issues, but Aaron cannot even remember his problems due to a memory disorder. 

Summer is in full swing and Aaron and Sadie have everything planned out, until Sadie's grandmother gives her own plan. This summer, Sadie is supposed to do normal things, like get a job, volunteer, and most importantly, hang out with normal people who can actually remember what they had for breakfast that morning. 

Following her grandmother's regimen keeps Sadie away from Aaron, but she does not have to stay away during her dreams when she visits Isola Fiona. There, Sadie does not have anxiety and Aaron can remember everything with perfect accuracy. At first, it is just a silly dream, but there may be more to Fiona Isola than Sadie really thought. 


Somewhere Only We Know is a great story on the surface, but there were underlying problems and an ending that disappointed me. 

First, the main characters were realistic, bold, and cute. 

I watched Sadie struggle with her anxiety and eventually overcome it. She is a new kind of hero. In most YA, the hero is the person with the special powers, the one who discovers they have special powers, or something else like that. For better or for worse, Sadie does not have magical powers of any kind (I promise), but she is still a hero to me.

She started the novel with crippling anxiety that prevented her from doing the simplest things in life, like get a summer job or make new friends. As the story progresses, she turns into a confident young women.

Aaron was also an interesting character. I like how his mental disabilities were highlighted in the book and not ignored. He obviously struggled to live with his memory issues, but nothing stopped him from wanting to live a normal life. 

Together, Sadie and Aaron were the cutest pair of best friends that I have read about in a while. Their relationship is so fluffy, loving, and just gosh darn adorable that I had no choice but to love them.

Overall, I loved how mental illness was treated in this book. The main characters struggled with it, but it was most the only focus of their personalities. 

I also really enjoyed the secondary characters. There was a variety of different people who made up the cast of this book, but none of them really had the spotlight as long as I would have wanted, which is my main issue with this book. 

Nothing was really ever delved into except for the romance and anxiety parts of the plot. 

For example, there was a big deal in the beginning of the novel about Sadie's mother committing suicide, but after the first couple of pages it was kind of forgotten about. I want to know how that affected Sadie and her family and just her life in general. I wish I knew more about Sadie's life before the novel. The contrast between her life before anxiety and the transition into the life of torture would have been heartbreakingly awesome. 

I also wanted to know more about Isola Fiona and the people that lived there. The questions of why and how were never really answered beyond the fact that the guy that created it was an "alchemist." That revelation was treated like it was completely normal and did not warrant any further explanation. 

I just wish that I knew a lot more about the world and the characters in this novel, which is good and bad. 

On the good side, Young creates a captivating world that I would love to know more about. She made me care about the characters and wonder more about their lives. On the other hand, a lot was left unanswered and buried underneath the romance. 

Overall, Somewhere Only We Know is a great representation of mental illness and a relationship between two best friends. The plot is a little bit thin and the resolution is not as complete as I would have liked, but it was a pretty good fluffy read.

I give Somewhere Only We Know by Cheyanne Young 3 stars. 

This review and many other cool posts are on my original blog, Crazy for YA.

A copy of this novel was provided by the author for review.

Powered was a premise that I was extremely interested in: people with powers have to take a Hero test to be a fully fledged superhero, and a girl who doesn’t pass. Unfortunately, the main character, Maci was immature, childish, and downright annoying at times. I wasn’t rooting for her to get her hero status, and in fact I was hoping that she’d have to wait and grow up a little before she received the title. I really liked the character of Evan – I thought he was a good edition to the story, even if I thought he was a little too perfect at times. The world building and descriptions weren’t the greatest and sometimes I had no idea what the character’s surrounds looked like. Even so, I’m quite interested in reading the next book in the series, simply because there was quite a cliffhanger, and I’d like to see if Maci grows as a character over time.

So honestly, I kinda expected this to be totally cute and fluffy - all about the romance kinda book.
But Understudy wasn't really what I'd expected.
As I started,  I wasn't really impressed with two things: Wren the protagonist, the entire story is told from her POV and also the writing style - it seemed kinda simplistic.
BUT the story line kept me going. While it is angsty, a wee bit predictable (ok quite a lot predictable) it also was funny, entertaining and captivating. So much so that when I got to the end of the book, I was a bit well, disappointed, cause I wanted more.
I am really glad I kept going, despite the fact that I wanted to throw something at Wren for probably the first third of the book, then just screamed at her in fury for the second third, She grew on me and I totally routed for her in the last third. I think my reactions mirror Young's surprisingly well thought out character building. And let me tell you, the characters ALL evolved and changed, Wren grew so much that, after reading the book, I not only liked her, I also remembered doing stupid stuff when I was her age. She seriously came bound and heaps from being Miss opinionated judgment to just trying to be herself, find herself and trying to see others for who they are.
So I really didn't care for Wren. But I cared even less for her friends. Gosh, I just couldn't believe she would actually call people like that her friends. Everything they did, was judge others and make sure they looked good in front of others.
Then there was Derek. Seriously, I totally fell for him from the word go. Totally cute, mysterious- a tad bit bad and more importantly really nice, loyal and fun.

He scoops up a handful of Skittles, drops the green and yellow ones in the small pile and puts the rest in his mouth. “Why are you doing that?” I ask. “I don’t like those colors.”

See what I mean? I mean, who doesn't love a hot, easy going dude that knows what he likes?
I wish there were more scenes with him, since those were my favorite.  But often Young just referenced that Wren and Derek had spent time together- so I got not enough fun flirting or witty banter from them for my taste. While I wish I would have had more romance more cute more fluffy, I think if I wouldn't have expected that, I would have been ok with how things are now. Then again, this is pretty short, so it wouldn't have hurt to have more cute and fluffy - especially since Derek is just fabulous.

At first I was not very sure about the writing style. It is to a degree quite straight forward and it felt a bit simple, especially since the MC was actually quite on the bitchy side.
as example:


The only other stagehand is absent today. And I probably wouldn’t have asked him anyhow, because he breathes loudly and always stares down my shirt.


But then Young slowly changed Wren's perceptions and with that her voice and suddenly there were sentences that hit home, suddenly I could relate to Wren.

Why is it that when the perfect guy for me comes along, he’s riddled with imperfections?

I’m not even sure what my point is, but I hope Derek got it anyhow.

The writing style is straight forward. Simply the voice of Wren: snarky, funny, angsty and straight forward.  I think it actually worked well with the entire setting up of the book.

Probably the most surprising thing about this book was how well thought out it actually is. After reading it, letting it sink in for a bit, taking a step back of it all... I realised that Young crafted this rather cleverly. It's a deceivingly simple story at first glance. But as one reads, totally side tracked by the humor in it, suddenly one gets drawn in, subtly pointing at deeper issues. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a deep thought provoking book, no. But also while I thought at first glance this is a bit of a "TV series" book it offers more than what one sees at first glance.
My biggest issue- it was too short for my opinion. I think that if Young would have fleshed out a few more scenes- rather than just mentioning that they had happened- this would have been a really great book.
Still a fun read, great character building, fabulous snarky humor and more to it then one would think at first glance. I am definitely looking forward to reading more from Young.