Slow placed and meditative, We Are Okay has Marin telling her story of grief and disappointment. She is in her first year of college, and, implausibly, she is staying alone in the dorms over the winter break. She is clearly depressed and soaking in misery. She is planning to spend the time mostly alone, in the deep winter cold. She is preparing to read books and to listen to podcasts. But her friend Mabel is visiting and she also prepares for that. Marin isn’t sure she can really cope with the visit but they used to be best friends and they used to have a relationship. Marin has lost her grandfather who she used to live with and she has no one left. Mabel is shut down and when Mabel first arrives the visit is awkward. Mabel is there for 3 days and it gets a bit easier as Marin starts to open up and they talk. Marin also recalls the past. We find out more about Marin’s past, and it turns out that her grandfather had some problems of his own that she only finds out about after his death. Marin is deeply wounded, and the main question in the plot is whether she and Mabel can recover their friendship and their love.

We Are Okay takes some effort to get through. Marin is an appealing narrator with some humor, but there is so much gloom and loss, the book is a downer. Yet it represents a loving relationship between two girls in a positive way and it gives a final message of hope. The unabridged audiobook performed by Jorjeana Marie helps get through the end, providing an emotional reading that brings out the power of the words. The writing is evocative, conveying Marin’s hurt and pain and her uncertainty about the past, and the audiobook does well at conveying this.

© 2017 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.