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A review by teavani
Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour
4.0
4.4
i quite liked this book! quite a lot!
- the main thing i like about this book: it's a love story, but it's really just the story of two people finding one another once they're ready. like two wholes coming together, rather than two halves of a whole. alternating between two narratives helped too, but it could have been a little smoother. felt a little disjointed at times.
- i'd really classify this primarily as literary fiction, with romance as a subplot. it really explores grief, loss, addiction. it's a lot heavier than i expected, both by cover and synopsis. very relatable themes for anyone in their early-mid 20s i think. figuring it out and all that. figuring out what your priorities are and the treatment you deserve from others and putting yourself first.
- overall, i liked the vivid imagery too. i had a vision for the mansion, the Yerba Buena restaurant, the bar storefront, the various floral arrangements, the food, and everything mentioned. i loved the colors that were emphasized - deep greens and reds.
- i can see how people might think the romance aspect to this is rushed. it kinda is. but when i consider the separate journeys each woman takes, their instant connection feels not only right, but deserved. like finally, a potential for healthy love. and it's not like it's without its flaws. their experiences still cause both of them to be a little distant and not communicate in the way they should. but the ending implies that maybe they'll just continue healing, together this time.
- i liked the Sara-Grant-LA arc but the Emilie-Jacob arc was probably the most interesting to me. Emilie could probably relate a lot to folklore by Taylor Swift (esp illicit affairs and cardigan i bet). something about a 20 something year old woman getting with a man who's 10+ years older than her and not knowing better is unfortunate, but is very interesting to read about.
- would have rounded to a 5 but the last 1/4 kind of lost me, especially with the focus on Sara. i understand she needed closure, but i think rehashing the old family small-town friends and the specifics of Annie's demise was unnecessary and distracting. and Eugene. especially after we spend time with her reconnecting with Emilie and the emotional labor it took to get there in the first place
lines:
Fleetingly, she wondered if this was a thing he did, like a side project, observing people in their natural environments. It was something she loved - being in other people's houses, seeing the colors they painted their walls and the objects they kept on their bookshelves. But when she met his eyes, his desire was plain (67).
She ached for the idea of more with him but she didn't, she realized now, actually ache for the reality of it (69).
Rush of lust, then emptiness, emptiness. The despair took her by surprise; she ushered it away and replayed the first part. Rush of lust, rush of lust (81).
"It feels like you," she said. By which she meant it felt like something miraculous but tenuous. Something too precious to be hers forever, but something she would hold onto as long as she could (87).
Always quiet and polite. Incapable of urgency or panic. What was wrong with her? (89).
In the silence that followed she realized how badly she had wanted to have been told a story. She craved the arc of it, the beginning and middle and end. She craved a moral, a meaning, something she could mull over in the dark (108).
She did what she did best: she fell out of herself and into his story. She asked all the right questions to make him remember it more fully. It made her happy to listen that way. It fed her (125).
She could have been the kind of person who doesn't mind being watched through a window at night - she could have lived that kind of life. Where did she go wrong? (134).
And yet it frightened her when it was over. No emptiness this time. It frightened her, how open her heart was (166).
And Emilie liked how it felt to be listened to. Liked the sound of her own voice telling the story. New to her, all of it. This confidence, this openness (210).
Somewhere in the last hour lay a misunderstanding, but what exactly it was she didn't know. How to recover from it, impossible to tell (237).
It gutted her - how easy she was to let go (239).
She knew how this worked, had been through it before. Someone she loved would leave her. Her job was to stay quiet and still and out of the way. To wait, to not need anything, to trust they'd come back (272).
And then, for a time, sitting with Jacob at the community table, she'd been a flower. Snipped from the root, quick to wilt, temporary. She'd existed to be lovely and to be chosen. No one had expected her to last (286).
i quite liked this book! quite a lot!
- the main thing i like about this book: it's a love story, but it's really just the story of two people finding one another once they're ready. like two wholes coming together, rather than two halves of a whole. alternating between two narratives helped too, but it could have been a little smoother. felt a little disjointed at times.
- i'd really classify this primarily as literary fiction, with romance as a subplot. it really explores grief, loss, addiction. it's a lot heavier than i expected, both by cover and synopsis. very relatable themes for anyone in their early-mid 20s i think. figuring it out and all that. figuring out what your priorities are and the treatment you deserve from others and putting yourself first.
- overall, i liked the vivid imagery too. i had a vision for the mansion, the Yerba Buena restaurant, the bar storefront, the various floral arrangements, the food, and everything mentioned. i loved the colors that were emphasized - deep greens and reds.
- i can see how people might think the romance aspect to this is rushed. it kinda is. but when i consider the separate journeys each woman takes, their instant connection feels not only right, but deserved. like finally, a potential for healthy love. and it's not like it's without its flaws. their experiences still cause both of them to be a little distant and not communicate in the way they should. but the ending implies that maybe they'll just continue healing, together this time.
- i liked the Sara-Grant-LA arc but the Emilie-Jacob arc was probably the most interesting to me. Emilie could probably relate a lot to folklore by Taylor Swift (esp illicit affairs and cardigan i bet). something about a 20 something year old woman getting with a man who's 10+ years older than her and not knowing better is unfortunate, but is very interesting to read about.
- would have rounded to a 5 but the last 1/4 kind of lost me, especially with the focus on Sara. i understand she needed closure, but i think rehashing the old family small-town friends and the specifics of Annie's demise was unnecessary and distracting. and Eugene. especially after we spend time with her reconnecting with Emilie and the emotional labor it took to get there in the first place
lines:
Fleetingly, she wondered if this was a thing he did, like a side project, observing people in their natural environments. It was something she loved - being in other people's houses, seeing the colors they painted their walls and the objects they kept on their bookshelves. But when she met his eyes, his desire was plain (67).
She ached for the idea of more with him but she didn't, she realized now, actually ache for the reality of it (69).
Rush of lust, then emptiness, emptiness. The despair took her by surprise; she ushered it away and replayed the first part. Rush of lust, rush of lust (81).
"It feels like you," she said. By which she meant it felt like something miraculous but tenuous. Something too precious to be hers forever, but something she would hold onto as long as she could (87).
Always quiet and polite. Incapable of urgency or panic. What was wrong with her? (89).
In the silence that followed she realized how badly she had wanted to have been told a story. She craved the arc of it, the beginning and middle and end. She craved a moral, a meaning, something she could mull over in the dark (108).
She did what she did best: she fell out of herself and into his story. She asked all the right questions to make him remember it more fully. It made her happy to listen that way. It fed her (125).
She could have been the kind of person who doesn't mind being watched through a window at night - she could have lived that kind of life. Where did she go wrong? (134).
And yet it frightened her when it was over. No emptiness this time. It frightened her, how open her heart was (166).
And Emilie liked how it felt to be listened to. Liked the sound of her own voice telling the story. New to her, all of it. This confidence, this openness (210).
Somewhere in the last hour lay a misunderstanding, but what exactly it was she didn't know. How to recover from it, impossible to tell (237).
It gutted her - how easy she was to let go (239).
She knew how this worked, had been through it before. Someone she loved would leave her. Her job was to stay quiet and still and out of the way. To wait, to not need anything, to trust they'd come back (272).
And then, for a time, sitting with Jacob at the community table, she'd been a flower. Snipped from the root, quick to wilt, temporary. She'd existed to be lovely and to be chosen. No one had expected her to last (286).