Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After five years at secondary school spent with no friends, Peyton King starts sixth form determined things will be different. Whatever happens, she will make friends at any cost.

When Peyton finds the friends she’s always dreamed of, including am actual boyfriend and she is happier than ever. But, when they let her down in the worst way, Peyton is left worse 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 pays for a one-way ticket to Canada and off she goes.


There is always something about Sara Barnard’s books that have me hooked from the first chapter, this one was no different. If you have ever felt lost or misunderstood you will defintely find ourself within the pages of this book. Sara Barnard really has a talent for writing authentic and realistic teenage main characters and Peyton is a character that I feel everyone can empathise with in some way.

One thing I adored about this book was how self-aware Peyton is as a character and how that contrasted with her view of her own well-being. You can sense Peyton’s desperation throughout the past flash-backs. She ignores so many red-flags, like her friends using her their own fain, the toxic relationships her and her friends are in and a lot more red-flags. This book also tackles the serious topics of casual drug taking and living with the attitude of ‘this might be fatal but who cares I have friends’.

All of this is then contrasted against Peyton’s positive experiences in Canada and how she is trying to bounce back from her lowest point in life. I adored the pacing in these chapters. They were slightly slower than the past chapters which allowed me as a reader to take in more about Canada and the experiences Peyton was having. One thing I really appreciated in these sections is that Peyton wasn’t immediately over all the everything that she had faced in the past. Peyton defintely too the slow and steady approach to healing and you could see the one step forward and two steps back happening for her. This made the entire book feel a lot more realistic for me.

Although I am normally one for a full romantic storyline, I throughly enjoyed that the romantic plot-line in Destination Anywhere never overwhelmed the overall story and Peyton’s journey. It was kept simple and I appreciated that.

I did have a couple of issues with this book. One being that I felt that the supporting cast of characters in Canada were a little bit underdeveloped. I found myself quite often forgetting their names and getting them mixed up. Another issue was I felt that the grandfather storyline in this book was entirely used as a plot-device rather than being an intrinsic part of the entire story.

Overall, Destination Anywhere was a wonderful and thought-provoking YA read that I will happily be recommending to fans of contemporary YA in the future. This book isn’t out until June 2021 but I cannot wait to see this out in the world and share my love for this book nearer to it’s publication!

A difficult story to review in some ways, because there were elements that didn’t quite seem plausible (which is the only reason I’m not awarding five stars). Everything else about this book drew me in, tugged at my heartstrings and had me feeling Barnard had perfectly captured that sense of uncertainty so many feel but never want to admit to.
Our main character is Peyton King, a seventeen year old travelling on her own to Canada. She has no discernible plan, has walked out on college and left a note for her parents...my first thought hearing this was what on earth could have happened to get so bad that this extreme action seemed like a good idea? As we journey with Peyton we learn more about her, and how she came to be in this situation.
Peyton, we learn, was bullied throughout her five years at secondary school. Isolated incidents initially, but they do gather in seriousness and there’s no doubting the impact they’ve had on her. Spending all this time with no friends, Peyton has a somewhat skewed view on friendship and the extent to which she’ll sacrifice herself to have what she sees comes so easily to many others. When she starts at sixth form college she is quite desperate to form friendships...and when she falls into a group she gets caught up in the excitement of this that she never takes the time to think about how healthy it is for her.
This won’t be an experience everyone can identify with. We see things from a viewpoint we might not necessarily understand, but Peyton herself also comes to see that she made choices in this scenario. No matter what self-awareness she reaches, her so-called friends were awful in so many ways - but it seems they each had their own issues. However, when we reach the dramatic revelation of what they actually did I was appalled.
There’s no quick fix here. Peyton is, obviously, finding things out and luckily she ends up taken under the wings of some more seasoned travellers who offer a very different definition of friendship. She has a wonderful travelling experience and this is definitely more of a positive experience than you might imagine someone in her position might have had.
There were some wonderful descriptions of the travel experiences, and the way this ended had a sense of perspective. Not everything was magically solved, but there were steps towards a more positive hopeful future.
Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication.

I’ve really enjoyed previous Sara Bernard books, but this one really didn’t do it for me. I think my main issue with it was the plausibility of Peyton being able to travel freely in Canada at 17, without her parent’s permission. I find it highly unlikely she’d have managed to check into multiple hostels without anyone questioning her age (most won’t let you check in under 18 without parental permission, which she absolutely didn’t have) and I don’t buy that her parents wouldn’t have contacted the police about their runaway child. Also why did none of the friends she made really question her age? How old was Beasey supposed to be? She called him older and more mature but I assumed he was a gap year traveller and would’ve been no more than a year/18 months older than her, unless he was a post-Uni traveller in which case, yikes.

Other than that, I just found Peyton very difficult to get on board with as a character. I think she read at times both older and younger than her 17, and she just didn’t have a spark. I’m sure there will be relatability for teens reading this who’ve struggled with bullying and loneliness, but the way Peyton and her family have dealt with that issue is not the right way to go about it, and I don’t think what she does to cope is aspirational or really even believable.

One thing I loved about this book though was the descriptions of Canada - after some of the lush descriptions of the landscape I’d love to visit (although maybe not in October - an excellent travel tip!), and I thought the found family/tribe part was lovely. It just would’ve made far more sense if she’d been a bit older - even 18 would’ve sold it for me.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC for this review!

This book follows Peyton in two different times, the past where she is just starting at a new college and the present where she has left her life behind to travel across Canada. Peyton has not had an easy time within education. She is severely bullied throughout high school and has no friends to support her through it. Therefore college is a new start, a new chance to make friends. However her past experiences have left her with low self esteem and desperate to find a friend. As we know this leads to events that encourage her to leave the country.

This is my first book by Sara Barnard. I now want to explore her back list as I loved it. I really enjoyed both sides of the story. Although enjoyed may not be the right term as the past scenes made me angry and sad. Sara's writing made me cry on several occasions. This is one of those books where you may not like all the characters or their decisions but you can understand and/or appreciate how they came to be. I would have loved to have gotten to know the characters in Canada in a little bit more detail however I think it highlights how Peyton learns that she is not the only person with difficulties in her life and part of being a friend is both a process of give and take.

In this book, Peyton has never fitted in with a friendship group or found a true best friend.



Instead she's always been alone, not out of choice but thanks to severe bullying.



At college, things looked up, she made friend with a girl and the group she knew including getting a boyfriend.



However Peyton desires dropping out of college after an incident and dramatically takes herself off to Canada for a break from life, by using her parents credit card.



While away on her adventure, she realizes her memories she's making are only ones she can share with herself as she's traveling alone, so when she meets some kind people her age in her hostel, including a Scottish boy she fancies, things look up, can Peyton finally find some friends?



With drug, alcohol and loneliness discussed in this book, it shows how much life can differ between teens and that following your heart will make you happy and provide clarity. Of course follow your dreams and not feel pushed into a life being forced on you is the main focus of the book and it's so relatable I love the book for that message.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Reading this book was like reading an account of my own teenage years. I have been in exactly the same shoes as Peyton. That gave me an instant connection to this book.


I loved the writing in this book. The separation of Peyton's life before and after her trip to Canada is a fantastic storytelling method, and it brings us much deeper into the story than even some of the characters are permitted.

While I did understand Peyton's parents, I didn't always like them, especially her Dad. I found him particularly overbearing, and I wouldn't much like to have him poking around in my life.

I also would have liked to have the Canadian side of things a little more stretched out. I felt we didn't learn as much about these people as we did the characters in the UK. The storyline with her grandpa could have also been cut or shortened as it didn't add a lot.

”Pain is not a hierarchy. It is like a reservoir. It all comes from the same place. Sometimes the volume changes, but people can drown in three inches of water.”

This book is heart-wrenching and I experienced so many different emotions reading it. It’s a painfully honest story about 17-year-old Peyton trying to figure out life.

Throughout her school life, she was bullied; she had no one to confide in. Her parents didn’t understand what she was going through not can they see that her passion is in her art, and not in doing subjects she doesn’t care about. It’s in college that she molds herself into a person she isn’t to fit in with new friends; people who don’t know nor understand her. These experiences took her on a downward spiral and led her to where she is at the beginning of the story; boarding a plane to Canada.

The story is told in a then and now narrative which I found extremely interesting. We got to see her travel through Canada with a new group of friends that help her to heal and change how she sees herself and where she was during her worst college moments.

I loved the juxtaposition of Peyton’s past and how she was used by her ‘friends’ and how she also used them in her desperation to fit in and her present where the experience is overwhelmingly positive and the friendships develop slowly and organically. I also loved the description of Canadian scenery and it made me want to hop on a plane and see it for myself.

My minor gripe is that I wanted more of the characters in Canada and I wish they were fleshed out more and I also felt that the grandfather storyline could’ve been skipped out and it wouldn’t have impacted the overall story. It felt out of place for the story that was being told.

I ached when I read this story, and as someone who was bullied during school, I could really relate to her and how she felt about herself. This is a moving story and one that needed to be told. Sara Barnard is a master craftswoman, and she has a great talent for crafting authentic characters that leap off the page. This was a thoroughly enjoyable read and another brilliant novel by Sara Barnard. I look forward to her next release.

*An e-copy of this book was kindly provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I really enjoyed this book as it hit home for me. I have always wanted to run away and explore a new place but have never been brave enough to do it. however I understand Peyton in so many ways. I feel like this is such a lovely book for anyone going through a rough time and showing how one bad experience can lead into a wonderful new experience. It doesn't matter where you are you can always experience something new.

I love all of Sara Barnard's books. Each captures a teen voice that is authentic, real and believable - it feels like that narrative is being told by a real teen, not an adult posing as one (which happens all too often with YA). She also highlights stories that are rarely told, outcasts who feel isolated for a range of different reasons - because of physical differences (A Quiet Kind of Thunder), events of the past (Fierce Fragile Hearts) or things beyond the characters control (Goodbye, Perfect). 'Destination Anywhere' feels like a combination of all three - 17 year old Peyton runs away to Canada on her own. Having spent her entire secondary school life being made to feel strange and different, it felt like college and a new start would answer everything - instead Flick, Riley and their group of friends made things far, far worse. Peyton's journey, of all manner of discoveries, in Canada is interspersed with flashbacks from before - the contrast makes for heart-aching reading, as the far-reaching consequences of bullying have taken such a toll on Peyton. She's a wonderfully rendered characters, as are the ensemble cast she meets upon arriving at a hostel in Vancouver - it's a cliche to say we root for her, but it's accurate here, whilst also being something of an understatement. We become instantly attached to her character, sending her love and best wishes through the pages. The greatest thing that Barnard has done with creating this character is giving a voice to groups of young people who may feel a degree of parallels within their own story and Peyton's, an introverted figure who has gone through so much and has been alone for far too long. This is the kind of story we don't see enough of and is truly essential reading.

A fabulous YA book. 17 year old Peyton runs away to Canada to escape her life. She has struggled to make friends at college and with a history of bullying at school, travelling alone across Canada might provide the answers she’s looking for.

After a chance meeting with a group of strangers in a hostel, they set off on an adventure together, exploring what friendship means on the way.

Details of Peyton’s previous life are interspersed throughout the story so we develop a gradual understanding of what led her here.

This book explores the themes of bullying, friendship, peer pressure and self awareness.

When Peyton King starts sixth form college, her one all-consuming goal is to make friends (at any cost). After being horrifically bullied for most of her time at secondary school, she's determined that things will be different.

Her wish seems to come true when she finds not only a group of friends but an actual boyfriend too.

But when they let her down in the worst possible way, Peyton is left broken and alone. With nothing but her sketchpad and a backpack, she buys a one-way ticket to Canada and boards the plane, hoping she might finally find happiness...

Have you ever been through a really bad period of your life and wished you could drop everything and run away to the other side of the world? Then this is the book for you.

The story is told from Peyton's point of view and flicks back-and-forth between her time in sixth form and the present day in Canada. I think this contrast works really well as it helps you to gradually understand more about Peyton's insecurities and why she behaves in certain ways.

She doesn't always make the right choices, which could be a little frustrating, but I think that's an accurate reflection of what "real life" is.

The only part of the story I wasn't sure about was the romance aspect. I think a lot of people are going to be torn on this, however, I think it was refreshingly realistic.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. I really don’t know what to say about this book. So, I will simply just be completely honest. Destination Anywhere surprised me. I did not expect for Peyton’s story to hit me so hard or for me to have so many feelings while reading this book. I’ll just get this out there straight away: this book made me cry. There aren’t many books I’ve read that have led to me sitting there on the sofa with tears in my eyes and a massive lump in my throat. There was just something about this book and a scene in particular that was about a third of the way in the book that really just got to me and made me weep. In a beautiful way. In a this is what a great story is supposed to do kind of way.

How do I review this book without giving spoilers away? Oh, Peyton, I just don’t know where to start. Peyton’s whole background story about her years of being bullied and what happened with her group of friends and boyfriend in college was just beyond heartbreaking. As a reader, you really get a sense of her struggles and how hard it was for her to go through years of school without anyone to call a friend and being bullied and abused constantly by her classmates for absolutely no reason other than that she was simply unlucky. If her years of being bullied weren’t enough, the experiences she goes through and the things she does to hold onto the first group of friends she ever had in college and the way they ended up so awfully letting her down…well, it was just soul wrecking. I felt so horrible and heartbroken about Peyton’s life and I so badly wanted to reach through the pages and give her a hug.

While there is so much heartbreak and many dark moments in this book (much of which are pretty adult and perhaps not suitable for younger teens), especially in Peyton’s flashbacks about what happened before, there is also a beautiful side of the story that just gave me so much happiness. Sure, Peyton’s travel in Canada doesn’t go as smoothly as she thought it would at first, but the friends she meets along the way make the whole decision to go off into the world on her own worth it. I have no words for how much I loved the other travellers Peyton ended up connecting with along the way. Their friendships were just perfect and gave me so many giddy feelings and just made me so happy for Peyton. Just trust me on this, there are certain characters you will all absolutely fall in love with.

Peyton’s search for happiness isn’t just about her trying to find a connection with people that she never had. It’s also about her finding a way to be who she wants to be and live a life that gives her happiness. This means trying to tell her parents that she wants to be an illustrator, leave college and work towards studying an art degree. It means trying to make them understand how unhappy she has been and asking for their support. It means Peyton sketching the beautiful landscapes of Canada and the people she meets. It means her realising that there is nothing wrong with her and that it’s not her fault that everyone at school couldn’t see her. It means her having the confidence to know she can make her own good choices and build her own life in the best way. I think everyone can relate to at least one thing that Peyton goes through. I know we can all relate to searching for a place for ourselves and how to be the happiest we can be.

I love Peyton. I love the friends she makes during her travels. I love how the story ends. This book, this story, just really spoke to me and I’m so glad to have read it. Also, I have now bumped Canada up to the top of the list of places I want to visit the next chance I get. I’m just so moved and inspired by this story and I hope you will be too if you read it. Please do. This is a book that will tug at your feelings and make your heart warm.

Yet again Sara Barnard has proved why she is a powerhouse of UKYA. She’s crafted another beautiful book about friendship and the struggles of growing up & finding yourself.

Barnard has such a skill of capturing teenage experiences in such a realistic and honest way. Payton is no exception, offering a realistically flawed and somewhat naive teenage voice that grows over the course of the story. I just wanted to reach through the page and offer her support through her awful experiences of bullying, drug use and toxic friendships/relationships. It is this cycle of toxicity that Barnard excels at exploring, as Payton falls into the trap of being used by everyone around her. I appreciated Barnard’s attention to subtle details, like Payton always paying for everything. All this serves to mark a clear contrast with her amazing found family of sorts through her travelling friends, all of whom were such lovely characters. However, Payton stood out, with her instantly relatable voice and journey that I could really engage with.

Destination Anywhere is a love letter to the wonder and beauty of travelling. In particular, I got to explore Canada and be immersed in the natural beauty of that gorgeous country. It’s somewhat of an unusual experience to read a book about travelling in the time of lockdown, but it reminded me of all the brilliant opportunities available in the future. I wanted to capture some of the carefree, spontaneous energy of the book. Also, I loved exploring Peyton’s art, as I’m always wanting to hear more about people’s creative talent and the descriptions of her work were amazing.

Full review will be up on my blog nearer publication date.