We Are Okay by Nina LaCour Spoiler-Free Review

 

I also happened to read and finish We Are Okay by Nina LaCour this past week. It's a YA Contemporary novel exploring grief and loneliness. 

The main character, Marin, a college freshman living in New York, gets special permission to stay at her dorm room over winter break while everyone else is gone, the only other person in the building being the housekeeper, Tommy. Marin does not want to go back to visit her home in San Francisco for some reason.

Marin is forced to face her past when her best friend (and ex-girlfriend) Mabel comes to visit. Mabel wants to know why Marin has avoided her since they graduated high school, to the point of moving across the country and avoiding her texts and calls. Over the course of the book we learn what happened to Marin and the big turning point that made her want to leave everything behind. 

The book is written with chapters alternating from the present day to flashbacks of Marin's life in San Francisco. We learn that she was raised by her grandfather since her mother died of a surfing accident was Marin was three. We learned that Marin and Mabel dated for a while. We get to meet Mabel's wonderful family who saw Marin as another daughter to them. We get to meet people from the girls' school who had an influence on their lives. 

I will have to leave it there before it gets into spoiler territory. I will say that this book was so heart-wrenching but so beautiful! Nina LaCour is a great storyteller. If you want a character driven and emotionally impactful book, then this is the book for you. 

However, I did give it 4 stars. There is a part where they steal some of Marin's grandfather's whiskey and drink it (I don't condone underage drinking!). The other reason is a spoiler so I will try to explain it as vaguely is possible: remember how I said earlier there was a turning point how Marin wanted to leave everything to go to New York? Well, I found that part kind of confusing while I was first reading it. I had to go online to find other people talking about this part of the book in order to understand it better, but I didn't find a lot of good sources.  I am just weirded out why I didn't understand the twist right away while reading the book, but that might just be me.

So do I still recommend this book? Yeah! Although It is a character driven book and not a plot driven book (that might not be a lot of peoples' thing), and it is a very emotionally charged book dealing with topics a lot of people might find heavy, but it is very beautifully written with a happy ending. It is also pretty short (about 200 pages), if you want a quick read. 

Have you read any character-driven books?