We Are Okay - Nina LaCour

RATING: ★★★★★

In case you don't know, I'll repeat it here: I love Nina LaCour! Everything Leads to You is one of my favourite YA novels and I am always at awe with how flawless writing seems when it's written by Nina LaCour.

So I was beyond excited when I bought her new novel We Are Okay. And as usual, this novel went beyond any high expectations I had.

The Goodreads summary of the novel is: 

Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit, and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.

While this is an interesting premise, I was worried the story would be cliché in either the way Marin's sadness is portrayed or how easy it can be fixed. 

However, Nina LaCour doesn't shy away at all from the difficulties Marin faces and how deeply rooted they are. You find out early on, this isn't really a spoiler, that Marin's grandfather died and that she grew up with him before that event. The way this book slowly uncovers the complex layers that made up the bond Marin had with her grandfather is amazing and really just a sign of amazing writing. Something starts out so simple and becomes more complex than I ever could have imagined.

Both Marin and Mabel are so easy to relate to. Marin's pain feels very real and the hopelessness Mabel feels is easy to imagine - how do you help someone grieve? How are you there for someone when they have pushed you away? How far can you push someone to let you in? These are all issues Mabel struggles with and I loved seeing her journey throughout the novel.

Overall, We Are Okay is not afraid to face difficult issues head on. Nina LaCour's amazing writing makes it easy for the reader to be guided through a journey that can sometimes be too close for comfort. However, We Are Okay also has a constant theme of love and friendship in it - how important we are to other people and how incredibly helpful we can be. This combination of sadness and happiness means this is a book I won't forget any time soon.

Everything Leads To You - Nina LaCour

RATING: ★★★★☆

I love Hollywood and all books relating to it. The glamour, the stars, the drama - I love it. All my favorite TV-shows are dramatic and glamorous and if they take place somewhere in California: I'll love them even more.

Secretly, I bought this book only for the cover. I'm not even ashamed.

What I loved about Everything Leads to You is that the setting is glamorous - movie sets in Hollywood- the stars on those sets are glamorous, the big houses are glamorous, but the lead character Emi isn't glamorous. She's just an average girl that any European-my-hair-is-always-a-mess girl loves.

What is glamorous is the amazing adventure Emi is thrown into. As a set designer, she goes to deceased people's homes and buys furniture for different movie sets. And sometimes, those dead people are big time movie stars who hide notes to unknown people in the cover of an old record. What do you do when you find that letter? How do you find someone (if they are not on twitter)? These are all questions Emi has to figure out.

Nina LaCour knows how to write

Nina LaCour is a famous YA writer, especially for Hold Still which is on my never ending to-be-read list, and this book once again shows why Nina is famous. The writing is effortless and easy to read. It's like reading an episode of Pretty Little Liars (I never read the books so I have no clue how the writing is in that, sorry!) - there is tension, drama and glamour in a very easy to digest style. It reads like the words just flow out of LaCour's pen, though as a writer, I can recognise all the work that went into writing such an easy style. Now I know that writing style preferences are very personal, so here's the opening of the book - to give you a real feel of what it's like:

 "Five texts are waiting for me when I get out of my English final. One is from Charlotte saying she finished early and decided to meet up with our boss, so she'll see me at Toby's house later. One is from Toby, saying 7 p.m.: Don't forget!  And three are from Morgan.

 I don't read those yet."

See? This little fragment, the first few words of the book already raise a few important questions: Who is Charlotte? Who is Toby? And especially, who is Morgan and why are we not answering her texts?

It reads quickly and easily -with no difficult literary tools - just an easy YA novel, but that's a serious skill that many readers underestimate nowadays. AND it never reads like a dumb novel at any time. Unlike the childlike and basic narrating of Laurel in Love Letters To The Dead, Emi is mature and observant of the world around her - something which shows in the writing.

Can I eat a pizza with Emi?

I didn't relate to Emi - she lives in a too glamorous world with a too glamorous job and too big of an adventure. However, that was totally fine, since Emi reads like she is your best friend, because like I said before, she's not glamorous. She's a tad naive when it comes to love, she's a bit dramatic and totally sweet and loveable, and don't we all have a best friend like that? I wish I could invite Emi over and talk to her about the letter she found and what to do about it. Pizza and a Hollywood movie - what more do girls need? Oh, and I would also invite Emaline from The Moon and More to discuss growing up and sucky relationships/reality. I feel like Emi and Emaline could be best friend too (and we would be Emi, Emaline and Emma - how cool?).

Every Hollywood tale has a flaw

For all the amazing things in Everything Leads to You, there was one thing I didn't like: the predictability. Finding the letter was very original and new - it started a good adventure. However, in that adventure, there are so many things that you know will happen. The only surprise for me was finding out in the beginning that Emi was gay. That shouldn't have been a surprise, because who cares, but due to the lack of diversity in YA, it was. Other than that, a reader can easily predict what will happen and at what point in the story. The ending isn't shocking either, which is something a lot of readers want.

But does that really matter? I guess it depends on the reader. I need good writing and a main character I love to like a book - predictably doesn't really matter. So I loved this book, but I do realise that many people prefer a book which is unpredictable and they might struggle with this book.

Conclusion

I would recommend this book to almost everyone I know, because I LOVED IT. However, as I said, I'm very aware of the flaw of predictability. So maybe I wouldn't recommend it to every single person I know - I can already imagine one friend who would hate it. But I can't live with myself if I don't give this book at least 4 out of 5 stars - it wasn't the best book I've read this year, but it was damn close.