Eighteen-year-old Evee Salazar undergoes an out-of-body experience! She's feeling the stress of senior year and butting heads with her mom. Worse, Evee secretly falls for Mark Perrino, the new guy in her friend group, even though she suspects he's stalking her.To slow Evee's roll, her mom sends her to sit with Gramma Cynthia on Friday evenings at an assisted living residence. Sounds like an easy task, but Gramma, who's descended from a long line of witches, decides to switch bodies with Evee on three separate evenings. Goaded by a mysterious friend, Gramma brews up this temporary body-switching remedy to increase her granddaughter's gratitude. But it only leaves Evee fuming.Gramma's body-switching plans lead to mayhem, but the madness doesn't end there. Evee discovers somebody else with malevolent intentions is casting spells behind the scenes. This shadowy figure has stolen Gramma's dark-magic spell book. And if Evee can't figure out who it is, they may destroy her life.
Plot
While there is definitely some magical mischief in this story, a large portion of the plot deals with Evee’s personal struggles as a typical high schooler. She has to figure out what college she’ll attend, she’s not sure if she should sleep with her boyfriend and she is constantly dealing with pressure from her family to be her best. All of this plays into the overall story involving dark magic and Evee’s grandmother, but it does take some time to get there. However, the author does a great job subtly hinting that something mysterious is happening and Evee’s life and foreshadowing the twists ahead.
Characters
Evee and her friends, including her love interests, definitely do deal with many relatable issues for modern teenagers. Unfortunately, though, I had difficulty connecting to Evee, as her experiences and decisions are much different than mine. She reminded me more of a characters you might see on a teen television show than a young person you’d meet in real life. Regardless, she was well developed and it’s clear that the author put a lot of work into making her a believable teenage girl.
Setting
This book takes place in the fiction town of Dairytown, Pennsylvania, based on the author’s real-life hometown of Doylestown. It’s clear that the author has a firm grasp of the place of his story, but I was most impressed with his ability to establish the time of his book. Most Young Adult novels rely on some amount of timeless-ness to keep their stories relevant over the years, but this book is firmly set in 2019, based on the character’s interests, music and movies. It was definitely a risk, but one I thoroughly enjoyed.
My Recommendation
Everyone Leaves This Place is a unique and interesting read for fans of upper Young Adult Fantasy. It does have dark elements and is definitely only recommended for mature audiences due to the content and language. While I struggled to connect with the main character Evee, the setting was set well and helped me really feel like I knew where and when the characters were in every scene. The plot can seem light on fantasty-elements at times, but it pays off by the end of the novel.
