review: destination anywhere

 

Title: Destination Anywhere 

Author: Sara Barnard

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Rating: 4.5 stars

Publication Date: 15 April 2021

Synopsis:

Sometimes you have to leave your life behind to find your place in the world.

After five years at secondary school spent without any friends, Peyton King starts sixth form college determined that things will be different. Whatever happens, she will make friends at any cost.

When she finds the friends she’s always dreamed of, including an actual boyfriend, she’s happier than she’s ever been.

But when they let her down in the worst way, Peyton is left no better off than when she started.

Now Peyton knows the only chance she has of finding happiness is to look for it somewhere else. Her life may feel small, but it doesn't have to be. With nothing but her sketchpad and a backpack, she buys a one-way ticket and gets on a plane. . .

In Destination Anywhere, Sara Barnard explores love, life and friendship in this exquisite tale of the lengths one girl will go to to change her story. 

Source: Goodreads 

What a delightful read, thank you so much to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced reader's copy of Sara Barnard's latest book!

Trigger Warning: Bullying, anxiety, abandonment, drugs.

I've been meaning to read Sara's books for ages but haven't gotten around to it. Destination Anywhere by Sara Barnard is my first book by the author, I requested for a digital copy of the ARC after reading the intriguing synopsis. After finishing it within a couple of days, I think it's safe to say that I'm hooked, and I'm more than convinced to pick up Sara Barnard's other books. 

Destination Anywhere is basically about a college girl from Britain, Peyton King, who struggled to make friends all through high school and was determined to start afresh at a new school/college. Apparently things hadn't gone the way she had hoped, because at the beginning of the book we find Peyton about to board a flight to Canada, convinced that she needed to run away from home to escape the trauma she had faced and to figure out who she wanted to be.

I really, really enjoyed being on this journey with Peyton. We follow her story in two time frames: the present, which is the part where she travels in Canada, and the past, which was the part where she desperately tried to make friends in college. I really liked the back-to-back storytelling of these two parts. The pace was fast and I feel like Peyton had really great character development throughout the book.

I think this book touched me quite personally because I'm reminded of a very close friend of mine who had experienced something similar to Peyton's struggle to find a best friend at a new place. It was because of this, in addition to my own experiences from traveling and studying abroad, that I found myself getting anxious when reading about Peyton's own social anxiety. I think the author did a wonderful job to portray one's struggles to connect with other people, their desire for meaningful relationships, and the mistakes people are willing to make to get this.

I absolutely LOVE reading about the traveling! In the acknowledgments, Sara Barnard mentioned about writing this book in the middle of 2020, when most of the world is restricted from traveling, and I read this in 2021 when not much has changed. So it's been a while since I've been able to travel, and it's just so wonderful to get to do this in the book, with Peyton and the characters she meets. Canada sounds absolutely breathtaking, and I'm frequently reminded of my unforgettable trip to New Zealand in 2015. I love reading about Peyton and the diverse group of people she meets and travels with, and it was a delight to get to see her in her journey to try to overcome her fear and anxiety about forming friendships.

I also want to mention that the few illustrations in this book were very beautiful, i love that this was included because in the book we see Peyton drawing in her sketchbook and it helped to imagine the places she went to. I'd highly recommend Destination Anywhere to all contemporary YA lovers, i rate this 4.5 stars!