Emotional Neglect, Misogyny & Bad Parenting | Places We’ve Never Been by Kasie West

Once again, I find myself writing a review of a perfectly good young adult novel which has been unfortunately tainted by the utter failure of every single adult character to act like a fucking adult. No parent is perfect, nor are they expected to be so in fiction. But when a protagonist’s character arc is resonating with me very specifically due to her unaddressed emotional neglect and the rug-sweeping being committed by her parents/the author…it’s probably a bad sign? I dunno. Just a thought.

As always, I feel the need to disclaim that this is not a “review” of Places We’ve Never Been in its entirety, nor a full encapsulation of my thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. of the text. (I liked this story.) Rather, the following is a commentary on very specific authorial choices made by Kasie West that I believe have unintended implications.

To provide context: protagonist Norah is gong on an RV trip with her mother, her older brother, and her mother’s best friend + her three kids, one of whom is Skyler, Norah’s former best friend who she’s fallen out of touch with since he moved out of state. (No dads are invited on this vacation). The roadtrip appears to be a long-planned event to bring the two families together at last. However, it’s clear from very early on that there are Other Reasons for the trip, and that it’s actually far more of a last-minute decision than the two moms are willing to say.

Additionally, a highlight of this roadtrip is Norah’s interview with the dean of admissions at her first-choice college, a small yet prestigious video game design program. More on that later.

A Self-Effacing Main Character

Norah is a character who many readers will identify with. Ever since she started high school, she has been made to feel that she is “too much”—too weird, too loud, too creative. So in order to maintain social relationships, to fit in, she has made herself small. She presents to the world an acceptable version of Norah and suppresses the bits of herself that trigger feelings of shame and rejection. Norah is a people pleaser, desperate to be accepted but certain that true acceptance is impossible.

I want to be clear that at no point am I criticizing Norah, nor the way Kasie West handles her character. People-pleasing behavior is not a flaw, but rather a survival mechanism that many with neglectful upbringings learn in order to get their basic needs met. Simultaneously, it’s a mindset that many children who identify as (or appear to be) female are taught from a very, very young age.

One of the core themes in Places We’ve Never Been is supposed to be Norah’s journey towards valuing her own uniqueness and asserting herself without fear. On a superficial level, it may appear that this narrative arc is fully developed and realized. However, I suggest that it is not.

Lessons on Emotional Neglect

As stated above, there is a Big Secret that is the impetus for the entire RV-roadtrip-with-former-friends. Norah accidentally learns this secret when she overhears her mom and Skyler’s mom talking. The Big Secret is something that does not concern Norah or her family, but which will directly impact Skyler and his future.

The moms command Norah to not tell Skyler (her newly reconciled best friend) so that his mom can reveal the Big Secret when she feels the time is right.

First of all, it is entirely inappropriate to make children your secretkeepers, particularly when it jeopardizes their relationship with their own support system. Norah’s mom and Skyler’s mom emotionally manipulate Norah into keeping life-altering information from her best friend, rather than deal with the emotional discomfort of revealing the secret “too soon.” They readily acknowledge that Skyler will be devastated when he learns Norah knew and didn’t tell him…but they don’t seem to find this to be concerning. This is bullshit. Both of these women are more concerned with their own emotional comfort than the fact that they are forcing actual children into a situation that will almost certainly rupture their newly healed friendship. Selfish, neglectful parenting.

But it gets worse. This is a Kasie West novel, so of course Norah and Skyler do more than reforge their middle school friendship; they initiate a romantic relationship. It’s very cute and sweet and tender. Not knowing this is happening, Norah’s mom corners her and says “hey, I think Skyler has a crush on you, so you need to do the right thing and make sure he isn’t emotionally devasted both by the Big Secret and his confused feelings for you.” Norah subsequently spirals into thinking she’s a “bad person” for having romantic feelings for Skyler and participating in a reciprocal romantic relationship with him.

The entire framing of the situation by Norah’s mom is so damaging. You are not responsible for others’ emotions. It is not Norah’s job to minimize Skyler’s crush so it doesn’t cause him pain. Skyler’s feelings are his own, and he is in charge of them. Teaching your teenage daughter to manage others’ emotions for them is just another way to teach her that she must make herself small for the comfort of other people, that she should feel shame for being her authentic self. Worse still, Norah’s mom doubles down on this horrible advice after she finds out that Norah and Skyler are in a relationship: she tells Norah that she’s disappointed in her choices and that being with Skyler under the circumstances is a “mistake.”

And there’s more. Norah has her interview at her dream school. During the meeting, she’s so busy trying to project what she believes is the dean of admissions’ ideal candidate that their interactions are inauthentic and disastrous. Norah is very reasonably upset afterwards, and she has the right to expect comfort and reassurance from her mother. Instead, her mom dismisses Norah’s distress with toxic positivity and insinuates that Norah shouldn’t “sulk” about her own issues given the Big Secret looming over Skyler’s family.

Yes, indeed. A mother looked at her distraught child and told her to suck it up because other people have it worse. That is emotional neglect. And all it does is push Norah back into the tiny box which delineates appropriate ways to exist in the world. Be smaller, Norah; make other people comfortable, Norah; don’t be selfish and prioritize your own feelings, Norah.

Look, I’m not trying to project all of my own shit onto this book, but…this is really bad. And it is not dealt with by the text at all. Actually, West very carefully manipulates the narrative so that Norah’s mom and her bullshit don’t need to be addressed, and she does so in way that makes the character arc feel ungenuine.

One character tells Norah that her mom “worries too much” and they both accept that’s just who the mother is as a person. “Worrying too much” is not synonymous with “negating your child’s right to take up space,” but okay. Sure. Then Skyler tells Norah that he knows their moms forced her to keep a Big Secret and that he understands, and he’ll be counting on her to emotionally support him whenever his mom actually reveals all.

The End.

Nope, not kidding! Places We’ve Never Been conveniently cuts off right when Norah should be arriving at the culmination of her inner journey. The reader never gets to see her fully comprehend that she shouldn’t have to edit herself to be worthy of love, that she deserves to feel her feelings as deeply as she wishes, and that she is not responsible for “fixing” other poeples’ pain. It’s implied in the one-year-later epilogue that she has done these things, but in no way is it actually demonstrated on the page.

“Feminism” means more than just increased representation

A consistent undercurrent in this book is the issue of women in the gaming industry. This is made clear both in Norah’s internal narrative, as well as the actions of other characters, including a potential love interest and the dean of admissions at her dream school. One of the more emotionally satisfying scenes comes when Norah loses her temper over the fact that the female dean of admissions is holding female applicants to a higher standard than male applicants, and she rightfully calls out the dean for that. It was a satisfying, rah-rah, girl power moment.

At the same time, I believe that the brand of feminism espoused by West in Places We’ve Never Been is not particularly nuanced, nor is it capable of identifying misogyny in anything but the most extreme and obvious of cases. Norah’s mom advises her to cut off any potential romantic relationship with Skyler because it might cause damage to him. The underlying message is that his emotional needs are more important than her daughter’s. This installs a 17-year-old girl as Skyler’s emotional caretaker and indicates it is good and correct that Norah suppress all of her own desires, wants, and dreams for the hypothetical benefit of this male character. Teaching girls to emotionally neglect themselves in service of boys is misogyny.

I find the conclusion to this novel troubling in several respects. The very surface level “girls can play video games and shouldn’t be held to impossible standards compared to men” message screams #GirlBoss white feminism, but the actual narrative demonstrates that simply hiring more female video game designers means nothing if they spend all their time filtering their personalities to be palatable to others. And I think that if West had be willing to confront head-on the way that Norah’s mom was contributing to the problem, rather than avoiding it, Places We’ve Never Been would be a much more satisfying story in every respect.

But seriously: how dare you tell your child she’s not allowed to be disappointed over her college interview because other people have real problems? How dare you.