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A review by emoverhere
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
5.0
Sometimes you pick up a book, and you can tell from the very first page that it will both destroy you and change you as a person.
We Are Okay is one such book, packed with so much raw emotion, unflinching grief, and heartwarming kindness that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. From the first page, Marin’s grief and heartbreak, her all too familiar solitude, and her helplessness against it shone through, and it remained consistent. It felt so real that I couldn’t help but imagine myself a ghost in her dorm room, observing from a distance, wanting to help but unable to.
Every single character in this book was so incredibly well written— Gramps and his complexity, Mabel and her tenderness, Ana and Javier and the warmth that radiated off of the pages in every scene they were in, the town was so incredibly alive, the beach and its cool air and the soft sand beneath their feet, Marin’s mother and her love for life, cut too short by the waves. Everything felt whole, like an independent entity standing out on its own in the real world, I can’t fathom the talent that could accomplish such a feat in a book that falls short of 250 pages.
And Marin herself, just—god. I’ve never felt such a desperate urge to soothe a character before, to seize her by the shoulders and tell her that this will pass. The way she described the inescapability of her loneliness was absolutely crushing in its familiarity, the impossibility of escaping it, the crushing anxiety as you sit with it. I’ve highlighted so much of this book, and a good chunk of it was about that specific subject, to see it written so accurately out in the open, right before my eyes. It was strangely soothing.
All in all, this book has destroyed me in so many ways, but it put some parts of me together as well. I don’t think I’ve ever teared up so much while reading a book, and then I spent the last fifty pages straight up crying for so many different reasons. It’s ridiculous how much this book made me feel. Even the romance was so beautifully written, and the conclusion to it felt just as satisfying. The passage where Mabel split the orange between her and Marin has been one of my favorites that I’ve read online suspended from its context for a while now, and to run into it unexpectedly today felt like fate.
I can’t believe I teared up over oranges. This is ridiculous.
This is nowhere near a comprehensive review of everything I felt or thought while reading this book, I think I’ve come to the realization that I’m incapable of writing those, but I don’t think I ever will have final thought about this one specifically, the things it made me feel were too vast and varied to be put into words. What I can say, however, is that I won’t be jumping into another book immediately tonight the way I’m used to, I’m emotionally spent, and I need to sit with my feelings for a while to unpack this sensation in my chest that I can’t quite name.
I think I’ve found a new favorite author in Nina LaCour, I’ll be seeking out the rest of her books soon, and if any of them makes me feel half as much as this brilliant book has, well– I’ll count myself lucky to have been alive in her time.
We Are Okay is one such book, packed with so much raw emotion, unflinching grief, and heartwarming kindness that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. From the first page, Marin’s grief and heartbreak, her all too familiar solitude, and her helplessness against it shone through, and it remained consistent. It felt so real that I couldn’t help but imagine myself a ghost in her dorm room, observing from a distance, wanting to help but unable to.
Every single character in this book was so incredibly well written— Gramps and his complexity, Mabel and her tenderness, Ana and Javier and the warmth that radiated off of the pages in every scene they were in, the town was so incredibly alive, the beach and its cool air and the soft sand beneath their feet, Marin’s mother and her love for life, cut too short by the waves. Everything felt whole, like an independent entity standing out on its own in the real world, I can’t fathom the talent that could accomplish such a feat in a book that falls short of 250 pages.
And Marin herself, just—god. I’ve never felt such a desperate urge to soothe a character before, to seize her by the shoulders and tell her that this will pass. The way she described the inescapability of her loneliness was absolutely crushing in its familiarity, the impossibility of escaping it, the crushing anxiety as you sit with it. I’ve highlighted so much of this book, and a good chunk of it was about that specific subject, to see it written so accurately out in the open, right before my eyes. It was strangely soothing.
All in all, this book has destroyed me in so many ways, but it put some parts of me together as well. I don’t think I’ve ever teared up so much while reading a book, and then I spent the last fifty pages straight up crying for so many different reasons. It’s ridiculous how much this book made me feel. Even the romance was so beautifully written, and the conclusion to it felt just as satisfying. The passage where Mabel split the orange between her and Marin has been one of my favorites that I’ve read online suspended from its context for a while now, and to run into it unexpectedly today felt like fate.
I can’t believe I teared up over oranges. This is ridiculous.
This is nowhere near a comprehensive review of everything I felt or thought while reading this book, I think I’ve come to the realization that I’m incapable of writing those, but I don’t think I ever will have final thought about this one specifically, the things it made me feel were too vast and varied to be put into words. What I can say, however, is that I won’t be jumping into another book immediately tonight the way I’m used to, I’m emotionally spent, and I need to sit with my feelings for a while to unpack this sensation in my chest that I can’t quite name.
I think I’ve found a new favorite author in Nina LaCour, I’ll be seeking out the rest of her books soon, and if any of them makes me feel half as much as this brilliant book has, well– I’ll count myself lucky to have been alive in her time.