Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Title: Everything Leads to You
Author: Nina LaCour
Genre: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, LGBT
Publication Date: May 15, 2014

I didn’t really know anything about this book when I bought it, but I knew that the protagonist was a girl who liked other girls. I obviously didn’t think twice before ordering it. It isn’t hard to pique my interest.

I think that one of my favorite things about Everything Leads to You is that it doesn’t follow a lot of tropes that most books involving wlw do. It’s a story of its own, not centered around the protagonist, Emi Price’s, relationships. It can be hard to find a book with a non-straight protagonist whose plot doesn’t center around the struggles that come with not being straight. Emi has a life outside of her sexuality, and it’s a really refreshing thing to see.

Another well known fact is that many books with non-straight protagonists end with the character heartbroken. From what I understand this stems from the fact that only books with tragic endings were able to be published years ago, so that they could be passed off as a cautionary tale instead of representation. I could be wrong, I’m far from an expert on history, but either way it’s still unfortunately common for fictional women who aren’t straight to end their stories with suffering. Seeing Emi get the same treatment as any straight girl in a YA novel would made me appreciate the book so much more. I don’t feel guilty in spoiling that Everything Leads to You has a happy ending, because it’s tiring for every single lesbian in the media to die or to leave or to have her heart broken. I want to assure you that you’re safe with this book.

Of course, another reason why I don’t feel bad about spoiling that for you is because it’s pretty predictable from the beginning. The book was good, but it wasn’t much more than that. There’s a list of things that I would’ve liked to have been different. The protagonist, Emi Price, felt very immature for an eighteen year old. Her parents didn’t seem to mind that she was never home, even though it was the summer before she left for college. Her best friend, Charlotte, wasn’t fleshed out well. I felt like for the amount of time she was in the story I should have learned much more about her. But, my biggest issue with the book was that every setback that Emi faced seemed to be resolved relatively easily, with no lasting consequences. Once Emi had learned her lesson her problems seemed to disappear, which seemed a bit unrealistic.

Ultimately, I would still recommend this book. It’s an easy, light read, and it has romances between girls that aren’t overly sexualized or dramatized. Honestly, what more could you ask for?

My rating: 3/5 badly drawn books
My favorite quote: "People talk about coming out as though it's this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I'm only eighteen and already it exhausts me." (page 190)