We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

⭐️⭐️

Synopsis

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. 

Incredibly Boring

The only reason I made it through this book was because it was so short. This was more like a journal than it was an actual story because it had no real moral or plot or point to it. If it were written in free verse, maybe i wouldn’t have been thrown off so much. There was no real substance to the book. It was all vague. I guessed less than halfway throughout the book that our main character was a lesbian, which was never really expanded on. The author just kept it this weird awkward shadow throughout the story. 

Characters/Writing Style

I couldn’t connect to any of the characters —not that there were many characters to connect with. The only person we got to hear much from was Marin and she was so passive and vague in her internal dialogue. LaCour didn’t make me care about this story at all. I think the only halfway interesting character in the story was the grandpa and he was dead. 

This book is mainly about identity and loss. Which are 2 majorly trending issues in YA fiction today. I think the author could’ve executed these better. Written them in a way that was more relative to the audience. I also don't think it helped that the book was so short. I feel like everything was rushed, which is ironic because nothing remotely significant happened in the whole story so you can’t rush nothingness.