Name: jess's review of Someday, Somewhere by Lindsay Champion
Item: Someday, Somewhere
Rating: 3
Author: jess

Lindsay Champion

Structured like a sonata, this heartbreaking debut novel hits all the right notes. Dominique is a high school junior from gritty Trenton, barely getting by. Ben is a musical prodigy from the Upper East Side, a rising star at a top conservatory. When Dom’s class is taken to hear a concert at Carnegie Hall, she spots Ben in the front row, playing violin like his life depends on it — and she is transfixed. Posing as an NYU student, Dom sneaks back to New York City to track him down. Soon, the two are desperately in love, each seeing something in the other to complete them. But Ben’s genius, which Dominique so admires, conceals his struggle with mental illness — and the challenges of her own life may make it impossible for her to save him from himself.

Someday, Somewhere

Lila Harrison

"When Dom's class is taken to hear a concert at Carnegie Hall, she expects to be bored out of her mind. But then she sees the boy in the front row, playing violin like his life depends on it--and she is transfixed. Posing as an NYU student, Dom sneaks back to New York City to track down Ben Tristan, a magnetic genius who whisks her out of her limited life in New Jersey and into a fantasy world of jazz clubs and opera, infatuation and possibility. As Dom's web of lies grows, though, so does Ben's manic need to conquer Beethoven's famously intense Kreutzer Sonata. But Ben's genius, which captivates Dom, conceals a much darker truth, and the facts of her own life will make it impossible for Dom to help him."--

jess

I enjoyed this quite a bit and found it very fascinating and filled with music. Full review coming later!

Alex Hill 

I wasn't expecting the ending?? This author better come out with more books.

Jelke Lenaerts

I RECEIVED A GALLEY OF THIS THROUGH NETGALLEY

Yeah, not a big fan of this one. Mainly I didn't like the characters or the romance. If you don't like those two for this book you're basicly doomed.

Alexis 

* I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review" 

3.5 / 5 starts 

let me start by saying this book has promised to be really good. There were just a few issues that i had. The first one being that one of the main character is lying about pretty much everything except her name when she meets the love interest. There is also a big case of insta love involved here. There were just small things throughout the book that would frustrate me a little bit. That being said i really loved the music element in this book. It definitely appealed to me since i myself use to play an instrument. I felt like the ending was pretty rushed, if the book would have been just a little longer i think i would've liked it a little more, rather than having such an abrupt ending. Overall i still really enjoyed my time reading this. 

Here is the full review on my blog if you want to read it!
https://thebooksoflifesite.wordpress....

Erin 

** spoiler alert **
           2.5 stars. I'm not sure if it's because I have subliminally high expectations, but ever since I spent the summer in New York City, every single book I've read since then that takes place there has failed to captivate my interest. The descriptions of New York in this one were pretty good, and definitely read as if they were written by someone who knows that city inside and out like the back of their hand. If there's one thing I hate about those who write about places they've never even been to, it's that it never ever matches the aura of the actual place. This book didn't do that, but I'm afraid to say that this is its only really positive aspect.

This book isn't absolutely terrible, I want to make that clear. But it definitely was not for me. I can recognise that it follows a similar formula to Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story, neither of which are particularly my favourite, so perhaps that why I could never properly warm up to it. At first I didn't mind it at all - I could connect to Dom, because I too feel the pull of New York City and would do almost anything to get there again. But her developing story line and obsessiveness with seeing Ben rubbed me completely the wrong way. She comes from a poor family, one that is barely scraping by, and struggles to find even twenty dollars lying around to pay for a train ticket. She calculates the cost of a subway ride, shares a bed with her mother in their tiny apartment, and then all of a sudden becomes so obsessed with boy in a different state/city that the cost never even crosses her mind. I just don't find that believable. She borrows other peoples' clothes from her mother's laundromat, which is just plain creepy, uses up her (also dreadfully poor) best friend's birthday money, and steals money not only from her family's business, but also a giant wad of cash from a jacket dropped off for dry-cleaning. She basically turns into a petty thief and criminal just because of a boy, and yet she is perpetually portrayed as someone with a good conscience, because she is eaten away by the guilt of lying to Ben, and essentially fulfills the mold of the manic pixie dream girl. Who cares if she steals clothes and money if she knows who Duke Ellington is? I just couldn't possibly sympathise with her as the story progressed and it made no sense to me that someone who grew up with as hard a life as she has would just throw it to the side like that.

As for Ben, I had mixed feelings for him pretty much from page one. He's a great musician, I will give him that. I especially liked the quote at the beginning of the book, where he mentions that every minute you don't spend practising, someone else is. But his actions were obsessive and also a little creepy as well, and it just sat wrong with me. He plasters the Upper West Side with posters with Dom's description just because he met her one time and she had an opinion on Frank Sinatra, and was always insulting others around him because either A) they weren't as good as he was, or B) they just didn't understand his genius. Literally nothing about him was appealing to me. There were so many parts of him that were revealed in the last 30% of the book that would have been beneficial to reveal early on, because at least then there would be an explanation to his behaviour and would make readers feel more sympathetic. Yes, there is a point that is crossed where it's obvious it is no longer a obsession with perfecting a sonata and is instead a side effect of a mental illness, but it doesn't count if you don't let your readers know that. Mental illness is not a plot twist, and it was used as one. The character is built up as pompous, entitled, with an ego the size of Manhattan, but all of a sudden he's got a mental illness and the reader is left in the dust feeling awful for disliking him at all.

There were a couple of little side storylines that could have worked, but weren't given an lead-in or lead-out, merely a middle. There was no background given regarding Dom and Anton's relationship, and it goes from a matter of him being a bully to all of a sudden they dated and he abused her. It felt unnecessary and forced. Part of what makes Dom's development is that she struggles with thinking she's not good enough, and clearly Anton is supposed to be part of that story line and represent a legitimisation for the voice in her head. But it was not done well at all and felt excessive. Another side story line that didn't feel real was the one with her father. His influence (or lack thereof) had no impact or role in the majority of the story, but then all of a sudden at the end she decides that visiting him is the only thing that will make anything better. It felt like it was a placeholder, meant to give Dom a way to achieve her peaceful happily ever after.

Both of these main characters represent a certain kind of character, and they do not delve outside of that mold whatsoever. In fact, nothing delves outside of a basic, simple mold. We don't know anything about the secondary characters outside of what serves to support the main ones. It's as if as soon as they check off a certain trait, their development stops. Also, the point of Dom being Latina was handled poorly, in my opinion. It was not mentioned whatsoever in the first half of the book, and was hastily thrown in as a side note as if it was a check box for diversity. Diversity is not a check box.

The ending is rushed and ties up in all the wrong places. It's great that Dom is pursuing dance, but after an entire book's worth of developing the fact that she's really really poor, I have a hard time believing that she manages to scrounge up enough money to pay for a top-tier school like NYU. Ben's story remains unfinished, and so is their romance. Exactly what was that scene in the subway where Ben is playing the saxophone? While Dom's story line has an outlook, we don't really know where Ben ends up. Okay, he's been diagnosed, but then what? And after all this intensity they both went through when they were obsessed with each other, are we supposed to believed that their relationship came to a halt just like that?

Despite all of these things I've laid out above, there are some things I liked about this novel. Ultimately, I did like the story of Dom's background and the contrast of her and Ben's upbringing. The parts I didn't like were how these backgrounds were treated. Like previously mentioned, I liked the descriptions of New York, because it felt real and genuine. I liked that the book was split into three sections using musical terminology. I do like the emphasis on the music, and it did open my eyes to how vast and beautiful the classical music genre is. These parts of the book were excellent, and after reading the background of the author, I am really glad that it comes from a point of experience. I also really liked all the references to old movie musicals. I did say early on that this book isn't a bad one, but it certainly wasn't something I overly enjoyed and I found quite a few flaws that I felt were substantive. Perhaps if some of the plot reveals were rearranged, and the obsession with and between the two characters was toned down, I would enjoy this book. Because I do want to, I just...don't.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lila Harrison &
Someday, Somewhere by Lindsay Champion

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Lila Harrison &Someday, Somewhere by Lindsay Champion

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Lila Harrison &
Someday, Somewhere by Lindsay Champion