Tag Archives: coming of age

Mars reviews We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

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We Are Okay by Nina LaCour cover

Not to be dramatic, but we need to start this review with a common understanding stated outright: this novel is beautiful. The prose, the imagery, the point. All of it, beautiful.

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour front and back cover spread

I found this short novel by completely ignoring the adage about books and their covers, and I am so glad for it. The gorgeous cover illustration depicts a girl standing on her dorm bed, arm raised, covering her eyes from an unseen sun as she stares out over a dark shore. Snow falls around her.

She faces away from us and her world is a stark contrast of pink surveying an empty blue landscape and a black sky. As she stands among her messy belongings in rumpled pajamas, everything about this girl seems lonely. What is she looking for? If we think about the usual mental association of college as a community space where privacy might well not exist, the juxtaposition is even more jarring. In this context, what does it mean that this girl stands staring out at one of the loneliest sights one can know: the empty horizon?

This cover is the perfect illustration for the story of Marin, a college freshman who is briefly entertaining Mabel, a beloved and estranged figure from a life that she used to know. From Marin’s perspective, we cover the three days over her winter break that she shares with Mabel in what sounds like the emptiest, loneliest dorm ever, and which she calls “home”. Without revealing too much, Marin is haunted by the ghost of her grandfather’s passing, and all the weight that carries for a traumatized girl who is struggling to understand who she is against the broken foundation of who she thought she was.

We were innocent enough to think that our lives were what we thought they were, that if we placed all of the facts about ourselves together they’d form an image that made sense – that looked like us when we looked in the mirror, that looked like our living rooms and our kitchens and the people who raised us – instead of revealing all the things we didn’t know (128).

We follow her flashbacks and dissociations to piece together the mystery of what has torn this girl apart and, crucially, how she can come back together again. What does it mean to go through a tragedy that destroys you? What does it mean when you are changed deeply and immutably, but still need to go on living your life like everything is normal?

In this coming-of-age novel, LaCour heartachingly captures the paradox of such an experience; one in which a unique loneliness begets an almost overwhelming internal expansiveness. While the main character Marin’s queerness is not centered in this story, it is a real and present facet of her; and if you are like me, Marin’s relatability will make you itch to give this little starfish a hug.

A side note on the illustration: while this beautiful book jacket was done by Adams Carvalho, I was originally attracted to it because I was reminded of the unique style of queer author and illustrator Tillie Walden, whose webcomic “On a Sunbeam” touched my soul, and about which I will need to dedicate a future review.

Mallory Lass reviews Rescue Her Heart by KC Luck

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Rescue Her Heart is a fun debut novel featuring a mysterious disappearance of both father and fuel, space girlfriends and pirate battles. I would call it science fiction light, so if you are interested in a lot of word building, this might not be for you. However, if you are a fan of adventure romance and can go along with some space travel and blaster battles, you will enjoy this whirlwind romance.

This novel is told in round robin style, ping ponging every chapter between the two main characters points of view:

Captain Nat Reynolds is an expert and experienced Space Ranger Pilot. She has been in the Rangers since she turned 18. Now she is 28 and recovering from a brutal battle where she lost a fellow Ranger. Her recovery is by way of a cushy space patrol assignment. Well, it was supposed to be a cushy assignment. That is until a seemingly run of the mill fuel theft incident down on planet Prospo threatens to upend her life.

In 18 short years, Catherine Porter has lived a hard life. Her mother died when she was young, and her drunk of a father has been missing for nearly a month. She has been evicted from her home and has minimal credits to her name. How will she survive?

Nat is in desperate need of a morale boost, which comes by way of a risky rescue of Catherine following the crash of her ancient space craft she purchased in a last stitch effort to find her father. Now that the galaxy has brought them together, will they be able to find Catherine’s father? Catherine’s father’s disappearance isn’t the only mystery these two need to solve. Their discovery mission brings fierce queer space pirate Sal into their orbit and she is definitely hiding something. Nat and Catherine have instant chemistry, even if Catherine doesn’t know what that feeling overtaking her is just yet.

The age-gap between the two is not an overshadowing part of the story, but it is definitely a factor in their relationship and how it progresses. Catherine has survived a hard family life, but she has hardly lived. Nat has survived a solitary life in the Rangers, but hasn’t really loved. They both have a lot to learn from each other. For Catherine, there is nothing like being swept away by a real life hero to start her on the road to discovering her sexuality. For Nat, protecting people is what she does, but its different when it is someone she is undeniably attracted to.

Another thing that really warmed me to this story is the friendship between Nat and Dee. Dee is a dispatcher for the Space Rangers, and in their communications together you can tell there is a lot of history and a lot of love for one another. Dee shows up throughout the story, as well as some of Nat’s other queer friends who we get to meet in a Sapphic space bar. Space pirate Sal is the shining secondary character but Dee and Vic and the others bring their own sparkle to this story. A significant number of my friends are queer, so seeing queer friendships reflected is really great.

Through their many adventures, Catherine and Nat are constantly tested. Watching their relationship develop and kept me interested. Pick this one up and find out how all these mysteries resolve themselves and whether Nat and Catherine can make their relationship work beyond their mission.

By day Mallory is extremely passionate about higher education fundraising and by night she is a hype girl for all things Sacramento, CA and all things queerkru (especially fandom rarepairs). Her favorite trope is age-gap. She wishes she could read all the things and eat more ice cream, alas hermione refuses to lend out her time-turner. Give her a follow on twitter @datalover916 or over on tumblr.

Danika reviews Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

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juliettakesabreathI don’t usually buy new releases. I acquire so many books that I tend to stick to used books and the library for new acquisitions. But when the reviews for Juliet Takes a Breath began to pour in, I couldn’t resist! I bought it brand new and moved it to the corner of my dresser, ready to be the next book I picked up. And then it sat there for about six months.

In that time, I heard more and more of the book blogs and vlogs I follow mention Juliet, almost always positively. But somewhere along the line the hype began to have the opposite effect. What if I was one of the few that didn’t like it? And then how would I even talk about it? I wanted to like it so much that I was afraid to actually read it in case it disappointed me. It wasn’t until booktube started the #diverseathon that I decided to finally take the leap and pick it. (“Finally!” My partner said. “I  feel like I’ve been hearing about that book every day for our entire relationship!”)

As usual, my nervousness was completely unfounded. I can see why so many people fell in love with this book, and I can only agree. It may not be for everyone–its focus on feminist politics and how they intersect with race and other factors will feel unfamiliar to some readers–but I thought it did a fantastic job with that focus.

This is a coming of age story about Juliet, who’s just had her eyes opened to feminist ideals by a book titled Raging Flower: Empowering your Pussy by Empowering your Mind. She’s so blown away by this book that she writes a letter to the author and lands an internship with her. She hops on a plane and arrives in the alien world of Portland, Oregon: a very different place from the Bronx.

There are lots of things going on in this book, but what stuck with me is its recognition that people are complicated and flawed. You can have some things figured out and get others completely, devastatingly wrong. And it’s up to us to decide which people are worth sticking with despite their fuck-ups and which people are toxic for us despite the things they get right. I think that’s such an important and affirming thing to see in a book about social justice.

This also really captures the feeling of diving into feminism and social justice and just getting hit with waves of information that are counter to what you’ve been taught to believe, and the overwhelming process of trying to sift through all of these ideas and find what makes sense to you, what you’re not able to wrap your head around yet, and what’s actually hate wrapped up in the right vocabulary. There’s a lot of theory and discussion in this book, and that makes sense for what it’s addressing.

I loved this book, and I can’t wait for Gabby Rivera’s next one.