Review:
Title: Everything Leads to You | Goodreads
Author: Nina LaCour
Publication: May 15th 2014 by Dutton Books for Young Readers
Source: Independent Bookseller
Format: Paperback
Genre: YA; Contemporary; Romance; LGBTQ+
Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met. She has a tumultuous, not-so-glamorous past, and lives an unconventional life. She’s enigmatic…. She’s beautiful. And she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.
Thoughts:
This is a novel that I’ve been familiar with for a long time but I hadn’t yet read. At some point this summer I got quite in the mood for some LBGTQ+ contemporary action, and this came to mind. My horrible memory cannot quite remember where I bought it, either here in town or at one of the many independent bookstores I visited on my escapades around the country. Nonetheless, I bought a rather neat paper back edition with the cover art that I ADORE. I didn’t realize how glad I was that the publishers didn’t have the cover redesigned for the paperback edition, until, well, the publishers didn’t have the cover redesigned for the paperback edition. Has this been enough rambling for you? 🙂
The premise of this novel is quite simple. Basically we start with Emi, a young production designer in Hollywood who actually works on movies (although she is just an intern, for now). Her life, when not revolving around movies, focuses mainly on three things: 1) An absurd mission given by her older brother to make something of the time she has with his apartment (she’s borrowing it), 2) Her semi-crazy, enthusiastic on again, off again girlfriend Morgan and 3) Her best friend Charlotte and the mystery that they discover.
This initial cast of characters were, alright. I REALLY liked Emi and appreciate the character choices that describe her. As the novel progresses her friends push her to grow and she has some fantastic development that compliments the plot. Morgan, is afraid of commitment, which fits the teenage girl stereo-type that she falls under. Morgan isn’t exactly stereo-typical, but it’s clear that she is meant to represent Emi’s past and evidently isn’t very important as the novel moves forward. This insignificance causes a loss in character development solely because of a loss in page time. Charlotte, I suppose, is the character that I have the most beef with. She is a constant throughout the entire novel, but she is absolutely one of the most boring best friend characters I’ve ever read! She didn’t even play into a trope. Not the lesser best friend trope, not the hotter best friend trope, not the I’m a sucky friend but you still love me best friend trope. I’ll admit it, Charlotte isn’t a bad best friend. I found her interactions with Emi to be fairly realistic, it was just that I couldn’t help but wonder what Charlotte is up to other than living Emi’s life and having a crush on her older brother! People have more depth than that. I feel as if LaCour was worried it would bog down the story, but honestly the nothingness was more distracting than finding out Charlotte had a brown pixie cut and liked baking bread.
The plot, well, the plot really begins with Cylde Jones. Ahh, yes, a made up Hollywood actor with a mysterious and steamy past. Well, not so glamorous as it turns out, but still lots of DRAMA. Emi and Charlotte stumble upon this mystery relating to his family and of course are obliged to become involved. I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that I think that even thought this was quite a toned down mystery, I liked the focus on the people involved. This made up for the fact that the whole mystery part was not exactly thrilling.
The plot, of course brought a whole second cast of characters. I won’t go into too much detail with them, but Frank and Edie were awesomely the perfect old couple. I loved them. Ava, well, Ava is harder to talk about with out giving anything away. I think I appreciated her presence the most in the story. Even though her actions and emotions were all over the place at times, she truly was down to earth, which was a change of pace from the Hollywood drama of the rest of the novel. Ava, to my own surprise, had almost as much personal development as Emi. Still, I felt like Ava could have been more complex than her backstory and current emotions, but I won’t complain because she was probably my favorite character! 🙂
Our budding romance, was well, sweet. But it was by no means innocent–all that kissing! Oh my. That aside, I think that the slow build up of this particular relationship was probably the most well written aspects of this book. LaCour didn’t let her characters rush into things, even when they wanted too. Planned with realistic timing, the characters emotions read as genuine and were pleasing to read about.
Lastly, well, the MOVIE. THE MOVIE. The movie is pretty much the underdog of the story. Admits the character drama and budding romances there is a production happening that was sort of struggling to get off the ground. I LOVED reading about the movie being put together. I’m not exactly a film buff, but I do appreciate a well done movie. I’m semi familiar with cuts, camera angles, and other little production things. I found that the actual making-the-movie part was one of my favorite aspects of the book. It was utterly fascinating, without distracting me from the plot.
Final Thoughts:
Everything that Leads to You is somehow like riding a rollercoaster, without all of the screaming bits. Entirely entertaining and at times, exciting, LaCour’s novel is utterly humble, and uncomplicated. Straightforward characters interacted in lovely, evolving relationships alongside a (somewhat) puzzling old Hollywood mystery. Behind the scenes details of making movies not only added to the reality of the characters situations but made Everything Leads to You a more mature and developed novel. For any YA fan desperately needing a lesbian love story in your life. For any YA film buff who could use a little spice to talk about lighting and set design. And for fans of contemporary favorites such as Morgan Matson’s Since You’ve Been Gone, this YA novel is certain to please.
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