We Are Okay, by Nina LaCour | Book Review #251

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.

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I thought that We Are Okay would be a happy LGBTQIA+ novel, but it isn’t. At least, it wasn’t a happy novel for me. And while I enjoyed the fact that Marin’s love interest is a bisexual girl… The rest of the story just…sputters out, and then ends abruptly.

I had some serious high hopes for We Are Okay. Everyone seemed to love it. All I heard were good things about this book. More importantly though, We Are Okay has a main character who is a lesbian, with a love interest who is bisexual.

One thing that I wish I was told prior to reading We Are Okay was that there is a lot of grief in this novel. I honestly felt like I was drowning in Marin’s grief. If you aren’t prepared for that, you might not end up liking the novel. As I did.

Marin had a relationship with her grandfather that was troubled to say the least. Both Marin and her Grandfather just seemed to co-exist around each other. For them, though, it seemed like it worked. Until it didn’t.

Between the now that is Marin’s life, we’re shown quite a bit of Marin’s life of Before. There are also quite a few flash backs that Marin has of her life before her grandfather died.

I’m happy that things in their own way worked out. The ending is a happy one, but I’m overcome by the rest of the novel. When I think of We Are Okay, I think that it was such a sad book.

I ended up giving We Are Okay, 2 of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read We Are Okay? What did you think of it? 

Happy Reading!
Adele