The Places I’ve Cried in Public – Holly Bourne

Amelie loved Reese. She though he loved her. She is now starting to realise love isn’t supposed to hurt like this. So, Amelie is retracing their story and untangling what happened by revisiting all the places that made her cry. If she works out what went wrong, perhaps she can finally learn to get over him.

I finished reading this book quite a long while ago but I am still thinking about it daily. Holly always writes excellent books that focus on things not discussed widely within books. This one comes with trigger warnings for mental illness and abusive relationships.

This book helped me so much to deal with my own past relationships and it helped me to realise that I sadly wasn’t alone in my experience. For context, I myself have gone through a mentally abusive relationship that in parts was physically abusive. This has continued to effect my day-to-day life years down the line. Thankfully, I am now in a very happy relationship with a very supportive partner, but that past relationship still affects me. Throughout this book I found I could completely relate to Amelie’s thoughts and experiences in the duration of her relationship and even after.

I learnt so much from this book because I was on the outside watching in. In my past relationships, I found that I forgot who I was, who I could trust and who my friends and family were. I learnt that a relationship is a two-way street and you should work together and care for each other completely.

I learnt that it is best to speak up and not keep quiet if you are uncomfortable and not being treated how you should be. I’ve told only 2 people about my past relationship, in detail and I feel that now I should discuss it with someone who can offer me the correct help. Watching Amelie learn to speak up throughout this book gave me the confidence to do the same.

The Places I’ve Cried in Public taught me so much and is a book I will always remember. It didn’t trigger me once despite the difficult topics and I flew right through reading it. This was the first book I have ever tabbed and as you can see I tabbed it a lot and will be referring to it a lot in the future.

Overall, this book is beautifully written, with a host of excellent characters. Holly has written yet another stunning novel that I cannot recommend enough!