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Summary
Summary
Winner of the 2018 Michael L. Printz Award -- An achingly beautiful novel about grief and the enduring power of friendship.
" Short, poetic and gorgeously written. " -- The New York Times Book Review
"A beautiful, devastating piece of art. " -- Bookpage
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 achingly honest portrayal of grief will leave you urgent to reach across any distance to reconnect with the people you love.
Praise for We Are Okay
" Nina LaCour treats her emotions so beautifully and with such empathy ." --Bustle
★ "Exquisite . " -- Kirkus
★ "LaCour paints a captivating depiction of loss, bewilderment, and emotional paralysis . . . raw and beautiful ." -- Booklist
★ "Beautifully crafted . . . . A quietly moving, potent novel ." -- SLJ
★ "A moving portrait of a girl struggling to rebound after everything she's known has been thrown into disarray." -- Publishers Weekly
★" Bittersweet and hopeful . . . poetic and skillfully crafted." -- Shelf Awareness
"So lonely and beautiful that I could hardly breathe. This is a perfect book ." --Stephanie Perkins, bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss
" As beautiful as the best memories , as sad as the best songs, as hopeful as your best dreams."
--Siobhan Vivian, bestselling author of The Last Boy and Girl in the World
"You can feel every peak and valley of Marin's emotional journey on your skin, in your gut. Beautifully written, heartfelt, and deeply real ." --Adi Alsaid, author of Never Always Sometimes and Let's Get Lost
Author Notes
Nina LaCour is the author of the widely acclaimed Hold Still , The Disenchantments , and Everything Leads to You . She is also the coauthor, with David Levithan of You Know Me Well . Formerly a bookseller and high school English teacher, she now writes and parents full time. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Nina lives with her family in Martinez, California. www.ninalacour.com
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Her first semester of college behind her, Marin stays alone in the dorms over break, even with the threat of a snowstorm looming, rather than return to San Francisco, where bad memories lurk. Her best friend Mabel comes to stay with her, and over the next few days, Marin contemplates the events of last spring and summer and deals with her complicated relationship with Mabel. Slowly, readers learn more about Marin's life: the surfer mother who drowned when Marin was young, the father she never knew, the loving grandfather who raised her but whose concealed secrets kept a wall between them, and the painful events that sent Marin fleeing San Francisco. LaCour's use of settings is masterly: frigid and desolate upstate New York reflects Marin's alienation, while vibrant San Francisco evokes moments of joy. Though there's little action, with most of the writing devoted to Marin's memories, thoughts, and musings, the author's nuanced and sensitive depiction of the protagonist's complex and turbulent inner life makes for a rich narrative. Marin is a beautifully crafted character, and her voice is spot-on, conveying isolation, grief, and, eventually, hope. With hauntingly spare prose, the emphasis on the past, and references to gothic tales such as The Turn of the Screw and Jane Eyre, this is realistic fiction edged with the melancholy tinge of a ghost story. VERDICT A quietly moving, potent novel that will appeal to teens, especially fans of Laurie Halse Anderson and Sara Zarr.-Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Over the winter holidays, college freshman Marin opts to remain in an empty dorm in New York rather than go home to California. The reasons she decides to stay gently unfold one layer at a time, in an introspective novel that powerfully explores her solitude and conflicted emotions against the backdrop of a stormy, icy winter. Marin's temptation to burrow under the covers and "stay in bed all day" has to be put on hold when an old friend, Mabel, comes for a visit. As Mabel attempts to persuade Marin to return to San Francisco (at least for a while), Marin is forced to confront the past she is trying to forget, namely the summer that began with Marin and Mabel taking their friendship into thrilling new territory and ended with the death of Marin's caretaker grandfather and the exposure of disturbing secrets. Through Marin's memories and cautious conversations with Mabel, LaCour (Hold Still) conjures a moving portrait of a girl struggling to rebound after everything she's known has been thrown into disarray. Ages 14-up. Agent: Sara Crowe, Pippin Properties. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* It's the winter break during Marin's first year at college, and she is facing the holidays thousands of miles from her San Francisco home. Since her grandfather died the previous summer, Marin feels set adrift. Not only has she lost Gramps, her sole caretaker, but he'd been keeping secrets, and when she discovers the truth, it shatters everything she believed was true about her life. Engulfed in pain and feeling alone, she shuns her best friend Mabel's numerous calls and texts. But Mabel flies cross-country, determined to help her friend deal with her grief. Marin is afraid that Mabel regrets the physical intimacy that had grown between the two girls while she was still in California, and braces herself for more heartache, but Mabel surprises her in more ways than one. With the most delicate and loving strokes in Marin's first-person narrative, LaCour paints a captivating depiction of loss, bewilderment, and emotional paralysis. Images of the icy winter surrounding Marin in New York contrast sharply with her achingly vibrant memories of San Francisco. Raw and beautiful, this portrait of a girl searching for both herself and a sense of home will resonate with readers of LGBTQIA romances, particularly those with bisexual themes, and the poignant and affecting exploration of grief and betrayal will enchant fans of character-driven fiction.--Colson, Diane Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
A meditation on surviving grief, "We Are Okay" is short, poetic and gorgeously written. The less you know about the plot the better, since the story unfolds in fits and starts, present and past. Marin is a freshman at an unnamed New York college, numb with sorrow and barely functional. We see her earlier life with her grandfather in San Francisco, in a neighborhood near Ocean Beach so vividly depicted you can smell the salt, see the surfers and feel its sandy desolation. Marin looks back on a summer with her best friend, Mabel, "when love was everything, and we didn't talk about college or geography, and we rode buses and hopped in cars and walked city blocks in our sandals." Fascinated by ghosts and disappearances, she hadn't yet known what it means to be truly haunted. The power in this little book is in seeing Marin come out on the other side of loss, able to appreciate a beautiful yellow-glazed pottery bowl and other people's kindnesses, and to understand that she might one day have a girlfriend and a future. The world LaCour creates is fragile but profoundly humane.