Book Review: Anywhere You Go by

Official Synopsis: Tatum Ward and Eleanor Chapman lead totally opposite lives. Tatum’s never left her Midwestern hometown. She resides in a quaint guest cottage on her parents’ property while working part-time as a waitress, where she spends most shifts ignoring her feelings for a beautiful regular named June. Eleanor dedicates every waking hour to her high-profile press career, sacrificing personal relationships for professional success, save for the occasional hookup to fight off her loneliness. When both women’s lives unexpectedly blow up at the exact same time, they each need an escape, and fast.

In Tatum’s hometown, Eleanor expects a quiet hideaway where she can recharge. Instead she gets wrapped up in the family drama that Tatum left town to avoid, pulled in by Tatum’s charismatic older sibling, Carson, who charms Eleanor at every turn. Tatum ends up in Eleanor’s New York high-rise apartment with June. One week together in the big city might make it impossible for Tatum to avoid not just her true feelings for June, but her real dreams for her life.

Amid a friendship with a reclusive Hollywood actress and a complicated family reunion, Tatum and Eleanor each discover much more than they bargained for away from home. Their house swap won’t last forever, but it might be just long enough for both women to surrender their defenses and finally fight for the life—and love—they deserve.

This story is pitched as being a queer take on 'The Holiday' and 'The Switch' where two girls 'switch' their lives to try to see if they figure out their chaotic lives. They both don't anticipate to find love in the places they go, further complicating everything else they have going on. Tatum is a smalltown waitress, who has a crush on one of our customers but has already rejected their wish for date. Tatum isn't sure how she feels about commitment and has a side gig of writing people's breakup texts for them, further giving her complicated feelings about love. Eleanor is a PR agent for Broadway, who is let go from her job when she learns the person she was hooking up with actually has a fiancée, prompting her to send a congratulations email to the whole company.

When Tatum volunteers to go to NYC with her crush, June, they offer to watch Eleanor's cats in order to have a place to stay. Eleanor decides to stay in Tatum's cottage, which is in her parent's backyard, as a retreat from her life. But now she is stuck watching an awkward family reunion that Tatum wanted to miss, and is making 'friends' with Tatum's brother Carson. As Tatum and Eleanor spend more time away from their realities, they start to develop feelings for the people they shouldn't. Now with complicated relationships, feelings and home lives surrounding them, they have to make choices that could change everything.

Overall, there was a lot happening in this book, with a lot of small background plotlines also playing in a role in what happened. Tatum's family just learned they have a half brother from an affair of their father's, and Eleanor has no family left. They are both searching for things they don't have, while trying to figure out themselves. One of the better parts of this book is Dawn, an older retired actress who lives across from Eleanor and makes friends with Tatum and June. Dawn doesn't care about much, but is a big factor in how the book works out in the end, which I really liked.

When it came to narration, outside of the names at the top of the chapter, it felt like Eleanor and Tatum had the same voice a lot of the time, which isn't my favorite for dual POV novels. They were very similar characters, but I like when POVs have different tones to them. The plot itself was good, with a lot of fun times and the characters having to navigate the distance in their relationship. Overall, not a ton of miscommunication which is nice. I do wish there were more moments of Tatum having to write break-up texts, because overall I think that side gig is rather amusing and at a certain point it sort of fell away.

There is a definitely an audience for this novel, I just wanted a little more from it.

I would rate this novel a 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Anywhere With You comes out April 22, 2025!

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