Nina LaCour

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.

A Novel

We are Okay

We Are Okay

vonias

I don't know if I still love her in the way that I used to, but I still find her just as beautiful.

Sanja.

Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

I listened to the same heartbroken song the entire bus ride home, because it was still a summer when sadness was beautiful.

... and I feel the warmth of the room and of her body, and we are okay.

The things we hold back get us nowhere but can lead to the end we need at some point

"You are still you," Ana says. "And I still want to be your mother. You were alone for longer than you realized." 

"Feliz Navidad!" Javier says, leaning the box against the wall, opening his arms wide to embrace me, but Ana reaches me first, her strong arms pulling me close, and then they are all around me, all of them, arms everywhere, kisses covering my head and my cheeks, and I'm saying thank you, over and over, saying it so many times that I can't make myself stop until it's just Javier's arms left around me and he's whispering shhh in my ear, rubbing my back with his warm hand saying "Shhh, mi carino, we are here now. We are here." 

We can exist in a simple space with good company

"And Hannah kept saving me. She saved me with never asking questions, with instead reading to me about bees and botany and evolution. She saved me with clothes she loaned me and never took back. She saved me with seats next to her in the dining hall, with quick evasions when people asked me questions I couldn't answer, with chapters read aloud and forced trips off campus and rides to the grocery store and a pair of winter boots." 

"I stayed longer. The hot water lasted forever. I knew I could wash away the dirt and the grease, but the wildness in my eyes was more difficult, and that was the worst part." 

A peak that I fear reaching upon never knowing someone who doesn't want to be known but wants to be loved by me

"Was he? I thought he never lied to me. I thought I knew who he was, but he was a strange all along, and how do I mourn a stranger? And if the person I loved wasn't even a person, then how can he be dead?" 

"I found my way to the love seat. I wanted a lecture about anything. The correct name for a coffee establishment. The duplicity of nuns. The difference between carnal desire and the love for someone's soul." 

Perspective plays the biggest difference in how lonely and small or how lonely and big we can be in the grand scheme of being alive

"I don't know if I've ever thought this way about the expansiveness of a life. I think about it as it is in the wider world -- in nature and time, in centuries and galaxies -- but to think of Ana and Javier being young and in love, having their first baby, and watching him grow up, get married, move across the world. Knowing that they'll soon have another descendant to love. Knowing that they'll grow older as time passes, they'll become old the way Gramps was, with gray hair and a tremble in his step, so much love still in their hearts -- this astonishes me. I am capsized." 

Knowing you aren't enough but not knowing that it isn't your fault

"I wasn't enough of a companion. I wasn't any kind of anchor. I felt the blow of it but I swallowed the hurt and said, "I'm sure she feels the same for you." 

"But sometimes two people have a deep connection. It makes romance seem trivial. It isn't about anything carnal. It's about souls. About the deepest part of who you are as a person." 

It's so funny how the imagery of loss tends to be depicted as a grey cloud that hangs over a person since it really is like losing the idea of who you are without that thing or person.

"I wonder if there's a secret current that connects people who have lost something. Not in the way that everyone loses something, but in the way that undoes your life, undoes your self, so that when you look at your face it isn't yours anymore." 

Julia

the first time i read this i was 16 and had never experienced real heartbreak, though i didn't know it at the time. i'm 20 now and i understand it all a lot better. as marin says, it's better if it's complicated. 

rory

** spoiler alert **
           < I can imagine how it would look to live there, and I know the things I would do, but I can't feel it.
I can't say yes.>

change & healing doesn’t come smoothly nor easily, this isn’t a fairytale where a single meeting with a fairy or a prince is going to fix all problems

“she didn’t have any character development” 
.. yes she did. 

her days spent with mabel made her realize some things. her denial, her regret, her love, her loneliness, & most of all her longing for someone to be by her side. mabel forced her back into reality, doused her in cold water when her body was as dry as a desert.

marin is a very raw & real character, she is so human. she is learning how to move on and become her own person. she is tying up split ends, fixing relationships, working through her losses and finding how to be herself between other people. 

this is a story of grief, loss, love & acceptance.
she didn’t need any major character development, the changes she made, even if they started small will get bigger and eventually she will find herself a different person surrounded by things that she can be proud of. 

< And I have yet another chance, and I take it.
"Yes," I say. "Yes." >

Kiran Aftab

4/16/2019: Well this book destroyed me. Time to read Jane Eyre.
1/5/2021: Ahh my dear comfort book, we meet again.

Heather Margaret

“It was terrifying, the idea that we could fall asleep girls, minty breathed and nightgowned, and wake to find ourselves wolves."

Sometimes the right book comes along at the right time. Perfection.

Fireless

| So good... so fucking good.... had me crying for 30% of the book

Bria

Nabila Azahra

4,5 stars

At this point all I wanna do is hug Marin & Mabel :( They are so pure and sweet and amazing and soft and whatever I just wanna hug theeeemm! My bed knows how much I cried reading this book. Grief, loneliness, forgiveness with lots of emotion beautifully captured in this book. I can see myself re-reading this book :) This is the first Nina Lacour's book I read, I might check out her other works too ;)

lina d

Julie Rubens

Great book! It was an easy read, good storyline, good characters. I liked it a lot. It’s not my favorite book ever but as long as I have 0 trouble continuing to read, a book gets 5 stars from me.

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

Zahra

3.5 stars.

The Lit Club pick for June 2017.
Short and sweet, but not memorable enough to be given 4 stars.

DNF at 37 minutes. Could have been the audiobook but this is so incredibly boring

Jasper

I think it's my first time to encounter this kind of story. Well, on how was the story laid out.

What I really loved about the book was the setting. I loved the fact that the story mostly happened in an deserted (?) dorm building all alone with a snow storm. I don't know about you but I got some Murakami vibes from here. I loved the loneliness and solitude that was being shown by the protagonist. This was a heart wrenching and emotional read about loss, betrayal, family and human connection. 10/10 would recommend.

P.S the cover was so gorgeous.

Vallari S

I like the representation and the fact that the book has relatable content for a lot of people that probably feel/have felt the same way. But otherwise, it was too cliche for me and a little slow at the beginning. It took me a while to get into it.

reading this book is like a reminder that your are never alone 🫂

elly

roro

it was really good. it broke my heart and made me cry

t. edwards

Nina Verhaaff 

First, this book was OK the fact that the author and I sharing names is also very funny.
Marin lives in a dorm room she's in college in New York and she's facing the loneliness that she has when she's in her dorm room there's no one around no one to visit her and she's pretty alone except for her roommate. Eventually, her friends from home come to visit, and then she needs to face the hard thing that she is pretty alone. 

Spoilers from here

Back that she left with her grandpa it's cute until she figures out it's not really her grandpa or something that's what I got from the story. The whole description that is given in the beginning on the dust jacket of the book that story only begins in the ending of the book that she leaves with only her wallet, a phone that stuff. I don't know if I would read it again it was a quick read because the book is very tiny and thin but the story itself followed grief but for me, I wasn't so interested in the story so I don't know if I will read it again so I'm giving it 2 1/2 stars.

Melissa Palmer

Book #37 Read in 2017
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Marin is spending Christmas break at the dorm. She is trying to avoid going home at all costs. Her best friend, Mabel, comes to visit and try to convince Marin to come back home with her. But Mabel does not know the whole story of why Marin left and Marin is reluctant to tell her. Will she? Will doing so help her to begin to heal? This was a decent quick read and the characters were interesting but the plot, to me, was not fully developed. I received this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for a honest review.

Apiecalypse Jen

I really enjoyed Nina LaCour’s adult novel, 

, so I was curious to try her YA stuff and it did not disappoint! This is the best YA novel I’ve read in a long time and a lot of it resonated with me even though I hadn’t lived through the same things the main character had. The prose was beautiful and easy to follow, and (since I listened to the audiobook) I’d like to reread a physical copy so I can catch more details. 

If you want an easy, quiet read with a lot of emotion and introspection I highly recommend this book!

Cloudface

I really enjoyed Nina LaCour’s adult novel, Yerba Buena, so I was curious to try her YA stuff and it did not disappoint! This is the best YA novel I’ve read in a long time and a lot of it resonated with me even though I hadn’t lived through the same things the main character had. The prose was beautiful and easy to follow, and (since I listened to the audiobook) I’d like to reread a physical copy so I can catch more details. 
If you want an easy, quiet read with a lot of emotion and introspection I highly recommend this book!

Hannah Yang

It is difficult to encapsulate what reading We Are Okay feels like, because it didn't feel like reading any other novel.

I can't relate to Marin's story at all, but I don't think We Are Okay was about the story. It was about how the landscape of Marin's mind shifts throughout the novel. There is the sunnier, brighter part of Marin revealed in her memories. There is her scared, lonely, hurt New York self that has shut all of her other selves away. I don't know if this feeling is shared by anyone else, but as I read, I felt that her thoughts were changing. Her worries began to subside. Like New York City, her mind's landscape was cold but sometimes, still bright and pretty.

I'm still not sure if that's the best way to put it into words, but what I can say is that We Are Okay is not about the story. There is definitely a story. There are a few plot twists, and there is a building up to a climax finished with a resolution. However, I think that when reading this novel it is more important to become lost in Marin's thoughts than to anticipate what will happen next, and what she will choose.

The conversation between Ana and Marin at the end was so important and I think that every teenager should hear something similar from time to time. Not every teenager will experience the kind of grief and loneliness that Marin did; not every teenager will have "problems". But I think that we all have some insecurities and questions that buzz at the back of our minds, and we all should be reminded that we are who we are and that we are okay.

  "These are all things that change a person. If we endure them and we aren't changed, then something is wrong. [...] You are still you," Ana says.

The writing was really readable. It was poetic but not prose; simple and straightforward without losing its lyrical feeling. Although I said the plot wasn't important, it was interesting (perhaps a bit on the predictable side for me, but it was a good story). It was a pleasure to read - I read the novel in just a few hours. A few words I would use to describe We Are Okay: Real, unapologetic, quiet, powerful, perhaps a little elegiac. I think that a lot of readers could enjoy it, and I'd say that it is appropriate for a mature middle schooler and up. I hope that readers will like it for what it tries to say, rather than for its plot.

Face down, lying on the ground, trying to process this book.

It's a great book, but god, am I glad that I put off reading this book. I originally planned to read this during finals earlier this year. I am so glad I did not. This book does a great job of portraying loneliness and how suffocating it can be.

I would 100% recommend this book to other people, but I would like to mention that this is a very character-driven book. If this is not your style of reading, then you can go ahead and skip this book.

Mythos

4.5/5 stars
Face down, lying on the ground, trying to process this book.

It's a great book, but god, am I glad that I put off reading this book. I originally planned to read this during finals earlier this year. I am so glad I did not. This book does a great job of portraying loneliness and how suffocating it can be.

I would 100% recommend this book to other people, but I would like to mention that this is a very character-driven book. If this is not your style of reading, then you can go ahead and skip this book.

This novel is a beautiful and poignant exploration of grief and loss. The clear, unornamented prose helped bring to conclusion the strong emotional arc for the protagonist. Truly a testament to both LaCour's talent and mastery and that artifice and overcomplication are not an inherent requirement to sophistication.

Lara Engle

"It wasn't the ghosts. It was the hauntings that mattered."

We Are Okay is a book about a young woman who is haunted but can't admit it. About a grandfather who let the hauntings get the better of him. And about a world who wants to help the pain go away.

It's a quiet book, more about insides than outsides, and not just the insides of people. It inhabits the insides of books, of paintings, of the process of artists. If it doesn't make you cry, then I guess you're dead inside, or you've had the enormous good luck not to have any hauntings yet. It's beautiful, sad, and life-affirming, even with the constant presence of the dead. We really are okay.

We are Okay A Novel

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