We Are Okay

We Are Okay

By 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.

I mostly picked this one because (a) reviews said it was short and (b) it was available at the library - and in fact had been on my TBR list for some time, even though I have no idea when or why I added it.  It's not something I would  normally go for, i.e., it has no plot, and concerns the emotional goings-on of a young teenager who mopes around after several of her family members die. 

It sounds kind of maudlin, but you know, in the way that teens really dig.  The author does a great job of not falling too deeply into that hole, despite the subject matter.  Yes, it does make you cry (even me, who hates sentimental teenagers and found families and other such wholesome activities, and even though I could feel myself starting to cry, and tried to will myself not to fall into the trap).  

It's a profoundly sad book.  The present storyline involves the narrator, Marin, planning for and receiving a visit from her old friend/ex-girlfriend Mabel, from California, during winter break. The past storyline, is pretty much what you think it will be from the outset, i.e., Marin graduates high school, starts getting involved with Mabel, and then her grandfather, with whom Marin has grown up after her mother died surfing, basically commits suicide by walking out to sea, leaving her to find out that he was hoarding all of her mother's memories.  This upsets her, leaving her to flee California like she's wanted for a felony, hence her current hermit-like cocoon at school in New York.  

Mabel's visit gets her to open up, grieve, talk, and begin planning how to exist again, rather than just remain in stasis.  It is, as I mentioned, very light on plot, very heavy on character drama.  The romance with Mabel is more wistful and in the past than an active relationship.  This is one of those books where you kind of read them for the catharsis jolt you get.  Does it feel weird and manipulative? Yes.  Does it prevent you from crying? No. I knew what was coming and I still cried.  

So, is it a good book? It's well written, and contains a decent enough story.  It's a sweet story, and no one is really the villain.  Mabel comes across as inhumanly patient, but aside from that, it's decently realistic, I guess.  For a YA novel.  There was a phase of my life that this would have hit all those synapses, but I'm a little more jaded and less wallow-y now.  I'd still recommend it to any teen girl.

05: A Sapphic Book