Title: We Are Okay
Author: Nina LaCour
Format: Hardcover
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Date Published: February 14, 2017
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Description:
You go through life thinking there's so much you need.... Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.
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.
An intimate whisper that packs an indelible punch, We Are Okay is Nina LaCour at her finest. This gorgeously crafted and cheeringly honest portrayal of grief will leave you urgent to reach across any distance to reconnect with the people you love.
You go through life thinking there's so much you need.... Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.
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.
An intimate whisper that packs an indelible punch, We Are Okay is Nina LaCour at her finest. This gorgeously crafted and cheeringly honest portrayal of grief will leave you urgent to reach across any distance to reconnect with the people you love.
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THE REVIEW
Reviewer: Sam
Reviewer: Sam
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Source: Purchased from Amazon
I was killing time in the University bookstore last week. I spotted We Are Okay while browsing a table of new releases. I didn't recall there being much buzz about this latest work by LaCour preceding its publication, and I typically save my spending pennies for the highly-anticipateds. But there was something about it, something about that haunting description and that cool-toned cover. I had to have it.
I spent that evening reading We Are Okay and drinking hot chocolate at a corner table in Starbucks. Never would I have chosen such a public place, friends, had I known: This book is a ruiner (in the best possible way). The final chapters had me not-so-silently weeping in my not-so-private corner. (I received several questioning looks from baristas and café-goers.) Still, days later, I'm a bit funky. I can't get Marin and Mabel and LaCour's lovely prose out of my head.
I'm choosing to refrain from saying any more about the plot than that which is provided already by the description. To say more, I feel, would be to say too much. There is beauty in the mystery of Marin's tale. There is beauty, too, in truth's delicate and deliberate revelation. I'm in awe of the way in which mystery and truth's revelation are simultaneously crafted in this novel, the way in which they are interwoven as though not mutually exclusive but, rather, as magnifiers of each other. Here, mystery magnifies truth. Here, too, truth magnifies mystery. It's devastating, really - because it means that Marin's understanding of the world and of herself can never be black and white and will always be new. There is no truth uncomplicated by ambiguity.
Goodness, friends. This story feels real. These words stick to and dance along your skin like sand, like snow, like pine needles. Like tears. This story feels like holding your breath; but, then, at the last moment, at the best moment, it feels like breathing.
Read this novel if you're looking to encounter art; if you're looking to encounter humanity; if you're looking to be swept up in a current of deep thought and desperate feeling; if you're looking to be transformed.
Source: Purchased from Amazon
I was killing time in the University bookstore last week. I spotted We Are Okay while browsing a table of new releases. I didn't recall there being much buzz about this latest work by LaCour preceding its publication, and I typically save my spending pennies for the highly-anticipateds. But there was something about it, something about that haunting description and that cool-toned cover. I had to have it.
I spent that evening reading We Are Okay and drinking hot chocolate at a corner table in Starbucks. Never would I have chosen such a public place, friends, had I known: This book is a ruiner (in the best possible way). The final chapters had me not-so-silently weeping in my not-so-private corner. (I received several questioning looks from baristas and café-goers.) Still, days later, I'm a bit funky. I can't get Marin and Mabel and LaCour's lovely prose out of my head.
I'm choosing to refrain from saying any more about the plot than that which is provided already by the description. To say more, I feel, would be to say too much. There is beauty in the mystery of Marin's tale. There is beauty, too, in truth's delicate and deliberate revelation. I'm in awe of the way in which mystery and truth's revelation are simultaneously crafted in this novel, the way in which they are interwoven as though not mutually exclusive but, rather, as magnifiers of each other. Here, mystery magnifies truth. Here, too, truth magnifies mystery. It's devastating, really - because it means that Marin's understanding of the world and of herself can never be black and white and will always be new. There is no truth uncomplicated by ambiguity.
Goodness, friends. This story feels real. These words stick to and dance along your skin like sand, like snow, like pine needles. Like tears. This story feels like holding your breath; but, then, at the last moment, at the best moment, it feels like breathing.
Read this novel if you're looking to encounter art; if you're looking to encounter humanity; if you're looking to be swept up in a current of deep thought and desperate feeling; if you're looking to be transformed.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆