We Are Okay

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour is a beautiful book about healing and the meaning of family.

Marin has not spoken to anyone from home since she left for college four months ago. Her best friend still texts her and is coming to visit in a few days in spite of the silence.

Marin grew up with her grandfather from the age of three when her mother died. When tragedy strikes again, she leave San Francisco for New York early. She has told on one at school about her past and has not really made any friends other than her roommate.

Now Mabel will be there any moment. And Marin will have to face what happened.

LaCour tells this beautiful, heartbreaking story with flashbacks into Marin's life growing up. I have loved LaCour's books since I read Everything Leads to You in 2015. She is an author not to be missed. Read this today.

LaCour, Nina. (2017). We Are Okay. New York: Dutton Books.

A Beautiful Friendship (Stephanie Harrington #1)

A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber is the first book featuring Stephanie Harrington, an ancestor of the main character Honor Harrington in my favorite space opera series.

Stephanie and her parents have moved to the planet Sphinx in the Manticore Kingdom. And she feels trapped. Their house is in the middle of nowhere and the other young people in town are not for her.

Dr. Richard Harrington is a xeno-veterinarian, specializing in animals local to the planet. Dr. Marjorie Harrington is a botanic geneticist and biologist. They are both very busy and Stephanie is not to go exploring in the wild without one of them. There are hexapumas afterall!

In her boredom, Stephanie notices a mystery. Someone is stealing the celery out many gardens around the settlements. The instances are too far apart to be a prank, but infrared cameras have not spotted anything. Stephanie is going to catch a celery thief - she is sure it is some native animal.

Climbs Quickly is a scout for his clan of treecats. Treecats, like most mammals native to Sphinx, have six legs: two true hands, hand-feet and feet. They are a sentient race who communicate through telepathy.

Weber has created this wonderful backstory, his first books for young adults. It is a treat seeing where the first human and the treecat met.

Weber, David. (2011). A Beautiful Friendship. New York: Baen.