I'm crying.
I believe in novel reading again.'We Are Okay'.Such a simple yet raw, sad, tearful, endearing, crushing, unputdownable, and quietly, achingly beautiful, profound and hopeful contemporary novel.The fact that I had no expectations beforehand - except to be disappointed, as I'm used to with novels nowadays, and right after trying to read another novel by Nina LaCour, 'Everything Leads to You', which I found it to be lacklustre, boring and shallow, and saturated with rich, overprivileged, literal Hollywood characters, and just really not for me - and it turned out to be one of my favourite reads of the year 2026, proves that hope and miracles must exist. When I need them the most.I'm only sorry I didn't read it sooner. Like in 2017, the year it was published, nearly ten years ago now.'We Are Okay'.Yes. Yes we are.We will be.I will be.I will be okay.Okay.Basically, this gorgeous, heartwrenching, loving piece of true-to-life YA fiction is the coming-of-age story of eighteen-year-old Marin Delaney. At the cusp of adulthood, she experiences a life-shattering trauma. And grief. In her shock, just as suddenly she leaves her home of the California Coast and flies to New York City earlier than planned for college, all alone, leaving everything and everyone she knows from her "old life".We follow Marin as she stays in her college dorm for the Christmas holiday, alone in the big, cold and dark building, surrounded by snow. Alone in her grief, and discovering that that isn't so. She never was alone, and she doesn't have to be alone, ever. Her processing her trauma and bereavement over discovering the secrets and sudden death of the only family member she's ever known, her grandfather - her past with whom is gradually revealed chapter by chapter - and her talking about it - starts miraculously happening at the arrival of Mabel, her school friend and secret girlfriend from California.Mabel has also moved on in ways of her own, and she is one of the few human beings for Marin to interact with during the Christmas break in NY, whether Marin wants her to be there or not, as a reminder of the past she is desperately trying to run away from.That's all I'll disclose.Read the melancholic yet life-affirming gem for yourself, and let it change you in ways you will not expect.It might even be life changing for a lot of people who are going through the universal experience that Marin is, as she is growing up, looking around, looking ahead, and coming around...'We Are Okay' - it's like a modern 'The Catcher in the Rye'. An instant classic that should be read and taught in schools.It should be a play, and an indie film.It is a sad novel, but it is so quiet, gentle, and decidedly undramatic about it. At least, it isn't aggressive and in your face with its themes. Themes of family and love, and the hardships that may come with them. There is no violence or abuse present - neglect? To an extent, yes. But the more information the reader is given by Marin on the circumstances of herself and her beloved grandfather in the past, the more we simply understand, sympathise, and/or empathise, as fellow humans. For most if not all of us have to deal with trauma, loss, grief, and/or any kind of struggle and/or illness at some point in our existence - worse still if we are without a proper support system. Then there's the very probable lack of communication between loved ones, especially when talking about difficult and painful subjects.This isn't 'The Shining' or any modern horror movie. Not every story - not every life - concerning (generational) trauma and the consequential burdens has to be over the top and gratuitously horrific. It's an insidious, slow-building disease. Sometimes it's what you don't see - what you don't find out until it's too late - that packs the most shocking, existential gut-punch.Sometimes it's the silence left behind that leaves the biggest impact on you.What is it like to live with someone you have always known and loved, but who you don't really know? Who you are too afraid to get any closer to, to open up to them so they will perhaps open up to you?I think some of us will catch on to, in a deep revelation, where 'We Are Okay' is coming from, when it explores what loneliness means, without actually being alone.What Marin goes through is devastating and heartbreaking, but after reading everything through - and the book is only a touch obvious and heavy-handed in its foreshadowing and symbolism, such as with plants, pottery, paintings, the art of Frida Kahlo, water, the ocean and swimming - it becomes understandable; part of the human experience, and easier to sympathise with every character involved.Marin will come to realise that she is more like her tragic grandfather than she'd thought. But she is not him. To go back to 'The Shining' (a strange comparison, I know), and to quote Stephen King in regards to writing it, "The truth is that monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win. That our better angels sometimes - often! - win instead, in spite of all odds, is another truth [...]." ('The Shining', 'Introduction - Stephen King', 2001)'We Are Okay' similarly uses ghosts as a metaphor, recontextualised outside of the horror genre, and into the everyday living of depression, isolation, and avoidance and running away.Don't let the ghosts of your past win, for you are not a ghost yourself.
Don't disappear.
Don't let anything break you. Nothing can. To quote 'Undertale': 'Despite everything, [you are] still you.'
You are in control of you own destiny.
And you are never, truly alone. Remember that there are people who care for you and love you. Who will not leave you behind, nor leave you to suffer in solitude, no matter how much you may push them away in your trauma, grief, and depression. These people are your family, if not by blood.
Found, living, loving families forever.
'We Are Okay' is a book about life, alienation, seclusion, mourning, silent suffering, inevitability, and people.
I like that the LBGTQIA+ element is understated, and its romance (Marin and Mabel - I won't dare spoil where that ends up going) is not the main focus and theme of the story; nor are sexual awakening, development, and "coming out" made into a big deal. Like loss and grief, it is just another part of humanity - another quiet fact of life said aloud. Thank you for this, Nina LaCour.
It isn't exactly perfect, however; as, a few nitpicks in the writing aside, I found Mabel and her parents to be a little too pushy, invasive, and insensitive to Marin, and her situation and emotional state. They should have been more patient with her, I think. Mabel's "kooky, hippy artist" parents seem particularly pushy, forceful and controlling, in fact, in their love and concern.
This found family of Marin's make up the only explicit POC representation in the book (they're Hispanic), as well.
But apart from that, I love 'We Are Okay'.
For we are okay.
We will be okay.
As for me: As a full-grown adult living through the 2020s who has recently learned that life is pretty much getting through each day without going insane (this is true of any era of human history), I can believe in the message of 'We Are Okay'. It helped me to.
Yeah. I am okay.
We are okay because no matter what, we are never alone.
Plus, Marin loves books, and a favourite examples of hers is 'Jane Eyre', another reason to love and relate to her. 'Jane Eyre', along with 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' and 'The Turn of the Screw', is used as a literary device to draw parallels to Marin's own story.
(It also kind of reminds me of 'Silent Hill'. Another surprising video game reference...Okay...?)
(Oh, and while I am a firm believer in love, kindness, compassion, empathy, peace, hope, and "hatred, bigotry, division, violence, and conflict are a prison keeping us from freedom" and all that, I have no love for the person who ruined the copy of 'We Are Okay' I bought online with highlighting and scribbles. I will have to buy a new copy, and I will happily, proudly read that, over and over again, and cry each time.)
Final Score: 4.5/5
