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236 pages, Hardcover
First published February 14, 2017
"'Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can."'
You go through life thinking there's so much you need. Your favorite jeans and sweater. The jacket with the faux-fur lining to keep you warm. Your phone and your music and your favorite books. Mascara. Irish Breakfast tea and cappuccinos from Trouble Coffee. You need your yearbooks, every stiffly posed school-dance photo, the notes your friends slipped into your locker. You need the camera you got for your sixteenth birthday and the flowers you dried. You need your notebooks full of the things you learned and don't want to forget. You need your bedspread, white with black diamonds. You need your pillow-it fits the way you sleep. You need magazines promising self-improvement. You need your running shoes and your sandals and your boots. Your grade report from the semester you got straight As. Your prom dress, your shiny earrings, your pendants on delicate chains. You need your underwear, your light-colored bras and your black ones. The dream catcher hanging above your bed. The dozens and dozens of shells in glass jars.
The cab was waiting at the station.
The airport, I said, but no sound came out.
"The airport," I said, and we pulled away.
You think you need all of it.
Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.
“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.”
// buddy read with girls with swords lover
this book feels like a journal to me. i felt like Nina LaCour just ransacked my bedroom and found my nonexistent journal and was like "hmm well she's sad and gay so let's make a book about that" and the rest is history.
i feel like 2018 is the year i finally read books by the authors i've been wanting to read for years. Maggie, Adam, Schwab, Becky, et cetera. and now, it's nina!! i've been interested in her books ever since Everything Leads to You came out. it's just because i'm a lazy ass who has mood changes and doesn't pick up her anticipated releases until years after. (i swear i'll read you soon <3). i regret nothing after reading this book.
this book feels like a safe place for me. it's quietly beautiful, inside and out (look at the cover !!! ohmygod). while i was reading this, i was listening to soft piano, then classic ghibli. you could say i was in tears by the first paragraph. Nina's writing is simple yet impactful. from the suddenness of marin's thoughts, to mabel's concern. everything just felt lovely and this is one of my favorite books so far this year.
i think it's because i just relate so so much to marin and how she feels inside. i've felt her kind of loneliness countless of times. where even my favorite book couldn't make me want to crawl out of the hole i've dug myself in. i've felt her kind of sad. to the point where i'm afraid of being too sad, too scared, too loud. if her character was written another way, i feel like i would have given this a lower rating (3.75 stars probably). i've been in the same place as her—i've experienced all the uneasy thoughts and emotions she feels throughout this novel. and i think that's what makes me love this book as much as i do.
because, even though it's not even 300 pages, it still impacts you more than any 700+ novel could ever try to do.
(x)
i loved the rep in this: a latina bisexual woman, lesbian woman. idk man, i just love when latino povs are featured in books (and done correctly!) and it made me like the book even more ahhh. i absolutely loved the relationship/friendship between mabel & marin. it was so sad to read, sure, but you could tell they still deeply loved and cared about each other. i loved how mabel was always looking out for marin the best way possible, and how she made marin a better person. i also love how marin grew and how she finally overcame her grief and loneliness!!!! my lovesssss.
even though the book has an overwhelming sense of loneliness and sorrow, it still tells a message: you will be okay. that the sadness and loneliness you feel deep inside your chest will go away. it will slowly disappear, and happiness will soon take over. i know it may seem impossible, but trust me, it will happen. and that's what We Are Okay shows you.
you will be okay.
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.