Some Faraway Place by Lauren Shippen
⭐⭐⭐ (3.5) Sci-Fi: A woman coming of age discovers she can enter people's dreams
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3.5)
Genre: Sci-Fi
Key topics/tropes: Superpowers, sapphic relationship, mental health
Grade: Young Adult
Series: The Bright Sessions #3
Published: Sep 28, 2021
Length: 10 hours, 48 minutes
Format Read: Audio by Allana Fox, Charlie Ian
POV: First, multiple perspectives through mixed media
Content warnings & important topics (More listed in Spoiler section)
Confinement
Death
Links
Summary
At nineteen, Rose Atkinson has given up on the hope that she would have an Atypical ability like the rest of her family: a psychic mom, telekinetic dad, and telepathic brother. But well past the average age of manifestation, her superpower has finally emerged: the ability to enter other people’s dreams and manipulate their dreamscape.
Rose should be happy to finally fit in with her family, but balancing work, mastering her power, and connecting with her new girlfriend is proving difficult. Seeking help, she learns that finally being Atypical just seems to make life more complicated—and dangerous.
Review
Rose is not an easy character to like. I don’t think Shippen wrote her to be an unlikeable character, so maybe this is another instance of adult-reading-YA.
Rose has realistic young/new adult problems: trying to get along with family, starting a new relationship, and managing her newfound dream-diving power. (Obviously, this last problem would only be ‘realistic’ in the Bright Sessions universe.)
My issue is, I can’t tell if she handled most of those issues in an age-appropriate way (none of the examples are really spoilers):
When a family member experiences a health crisis, Rose chooses to retreat into the dreamworld for weeks, 12+ hours each day, and gets angry at her family for saying she’s not present with them during this difficult time.
Her girlfriend (Emily) doesn’t know about Atypicals, much less Rose’s specific ability. But Rose regularly dives into her dreams and uses information from her dreams to perform special gestures for her in their waking hours.
Rose and her brother (Aaron) have a hot-and-cold relationship after they grew apart during their teenage years, when his telepathy manifested. Every time he tries to connect with her, she shuts him down, even though readers know she truly does wish they were close again.
Maybe this type of behavior could be ‘excusable’ for a 19-year-old in this universe, but I can’t make up my mind. Regardless, there were a lot of sighs of defeat during my reading experience as a 29-year-old.
The story is told through four different forms of media. I personally appreciated the various forms of media as a way to get perspectives from other characters whose lives are or will be affected by Rose.
Journal entries — From Rose’s perspective. Takes up most of the book’s content.
Threads on an Unusual online forum — From Aaron’s POV. The forum’s called “Readit” (Reddit) and bans the use of the term “Atypical” to avoid detection from the “Atypical Monitors”, the organization that monitors Atypicals (obviously lol).
Blog posts — Written by Emily on her Marvel/Supernatural fanfiction blog based on “Mumblr” (Tumblr).
Letters — Written by Damien (from A Neon Darkness). None of the letters are actually sent to the recipient (More in Podcast Spoilers).
I was initially surprised to see Damien show up at all in this book, and more surprised that he plays major role in this story. I personally appreciated this big crossover, but it raised some concern: I don’t know how this reading experience would play out for readers who didn’t listen to the podcast.
From Damien’s letters, we learn Rose’s story is taking place ten years after the previous book (A Neon Darkness). Podcast-people know a LOT has happened surrounding Damien and the podcast’s main cast of characters between the events of A Neon Darkness and this book.
Without giving spoilers, the podcast episode where Rose meets the cast is used as a scene in the book. They outline to Rose their main story arcs from the show, so Rose serves as a stand-in to non-podcast listeners. It’s hard to suspend my background knowledge and imagine if those outlines are sufficient or if they feel too info-dumpy, etc.
Regardless, Damien’s appearance greatly helps pick up the pace of the plot. Before this point, Rose’s story feels a bit slow. Events unfold during this time, but it feels a little ‘slice-of-life’ and meandering, even for a universe where people have superpowers. But as we’ve learned about Damien from A Neon Darkness, when he shows up, things start to go down…hill (lol).
And the hill is steep. Without giving spoilers for the book or the podcast, Damien’s character growth in the overall Bright Sessions universe is complicated, and once he shows up here, that complexity both helps and hinders Rose’s own character growth.
Which brings me to my thoughts on the emotional tone of the overall series: The tone yo-yos noticeably over the course of the three books.
The Infinite Noise (#1) started us off with a cute romance with high school drama. A Neon Darkness (#2) went straight to somber and sinister, with literal life-or-death stakes. Then Some Faraway Place (#3) brought us to squarely in the middle on the overall ‘tension scale’, with the higher tension-points reached only due to Damien’s introduction into the story.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad experience. I understand the series is focused on different characters, so you expect the tone to shift based on their circumstances. But from a momentum perspective, it felt like there was a huge emotional build up by the end of Book #2, and we skidded to a leisurely stroll to end the series.
While I like Damien as an interesting character, with him driving the most tense moments of Some Faraway Place, I felt like attention was drawn away from Rose in her own book, and those moments served more to develop Damien’s character (More in Podcast Spoilers).
I don’t think Rose’s story was the best way to conclude the series, but as its own book, I enjoyed it enough. Every aforementioned frustration I had with Rose’s behaviors was eventually addressed through mature, adult conversation between her and the other characters, and I fully bought into the promise of her continued character growth after the story’s conclusion. If Shippen were to decide to continue the series, I’d pick up future installments.
Author Rep Notes
Lauren Shippen is bisexual and experiences panic attacks (SGN interview).
Character Rep Notes
Race/Ethnicity
Rose — Jewish
Emily — Latina. Her race doesn’t impact the story, but there’s a scene that highlights her cultural ties.
Characters from The Infinite Noise who show up briefly:
Dr. Bright — Asian. Her race was canonically confirmed as of this book, but I personally had always imagined her as Asian because her voice actress is Japanese.
Mark — Asian, canonically confirmed since he’s Dr. Bright’s brother.
Adam — Half-Black
Sexuality
Rose — Gay (mentioned on page)
Emily — Pansexual (mentioned on page)
Damien — His sexuality isn’t labeled, but he’s expressed romantic interest in men and women.
Characters from The Infinite Noise who show up briefly:
Adam — Gay (mentioned on page)
Caleb — His sexuality isn’t labeled, but he’s in a relationship with Adam.
Sam — Bisexual. It’s mentioned in the podcast, but none of the books.
Mark — Bisexual. It’s mentioned in the podcast, but none of the books.
Also by Lauren Shippen:
The Infinite Noise (The Bright Sessions #1)
A Neon Darkness (The Bright Sessions #2)
🚫 Spoilers ahead
Additional content warning:
Terminal illness — Rose’s dad is diagnosed with dementia.
🚫 Podcast spoilers
Damien’s letters
Damien’s letters are addressed to Mark, explaining his experience of being powerless and confined at the AM after Dr. Bright and Sam dropped him off there. Podcast listeners know the events that led to this outcome (Caleb assaulting him to protect Adam), and readers get some of that background. The letters also show Damien’s reluctance to admit how he feels about Mark, though he does reveal them to Rose later on.
Damien’s character development
At the end of A Neon Darkness, we see Damien’s resigned himself to a life of wandering, unwilling to learn the nuances of social relationships and how to balance his power with his desire for true connection. At the end of the podcast, we see him truly broken, not even having his powers to create ‘fake’ relationships.
In Some Faraway Place, we see he’s gained more emotional intelligence in how he’s able to give Rose decent advice on her personal issues. He does still manipulate her by playing on her vulnerabilities (without having use of his power), but they seem to reach an eventual understanding that they’re both flawed people just trying to navigate difficult circumstances.
It’s just that the overall character-development payoff for readers has more weight when it comes to Damien because we’re naturally more invested in him, having spent an entire book in his past. We just met Rose in this book, and of course we’re happy to see her growth too, but it felt overshadowed by Damien’s growth.