Review: We Are Okay by Nina LaCour (Spoiler-Free)

If only I had something to take the edge off the loneliness. If only lonely were a more accurate word. It should sound much less pretty.

There are some books that make you think you're being watched. That the author must somehow live in your head, because how else could she pen the thoughts you were convinced only you possessed?

There are also some books that feel like they live on another plane of existence. That while you read them, you're swept away to some other place, some better place, some place where you aren't the only one struggling. If you felt that way about The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I have a feeling you might feel that way about this book too.

This book is going to speak to a lot of people, and also bore a lot of others. And that's okay. Because the ones who need it make up for all the rest.

LaCour's prose washes over the reader like a wave, suspending them in the drift. It's quiet, but powerful. There are far too many passages to include in this review, but I'll leave you with just a few of my favorites.

I think of how time passes so differently for different people. Mabel and Jacob, their months in Los Angeles, months full of doing and seeing and going. Road trips, the ocean. So much living crammed into every day. And then me in my room. Watering my plant. Making ramen. Cleaning my yellow bowls night after night after night.

--

We were getting ready for the party, but the time was getting later and we weren't hurrying. The real event was us, in her room.

--

It was a summer of trying not to think too deeply. A summer of pretending that the end wasn't coming. A summer where I got lost in time, when I rarely knew what day it was, rarely cared about the hour. A summer so bright and warm it made me believe the heat would linger, that there would always be more days, that blood on handkerchiefs was an exercise in stain removal and not a sign of oblivion. It was a summer of denial.