Everything Leads To You by Nina LaCour

Summary:

A love letter to the craft and romance of film and fate in front of—and behind—the camera from the award-winning author of Hold Still.

A wunderkind young set designer, Emi has already started to find her way in the competitive Hollywood film world.

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.

Review:

Hey, Alex here! Yup, I’m still alive, I’ll be free soon and hopefully I’ll be around and writing reviews again. If I remember how to do them, that is…

I had been meaning to read this book since forever because I had heard great things about it and it definitely did not disappoint. It is a perfect book for summer because it features family, friendship, solving mysteries and romance, and if you are anything like me, those traits will remind you of summer. Also, if you are interested in cinema or the film industry, you get to read from a future production designer point of view. The author gives very detailed descriptions of everything involving Emi’s job and I found myself learning a lot of the industry and wanting to know even more.

“We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. they tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken.”

Emi is an 18 year old and a set designer. She is a hopeless romantic, even though she is in a on and off relationship with a girl who would prefer to be free and able to meet other people, too. If Emi’s life wasn’t interesting enough, she finds a letter written by a famous western actor. This letter leads her to Ava, a girl whose life is basically a mystery and Emi cannot wait to help her figure everything out.

“Yearning is a red-haired girl sitting on the hood of her silver sedan, reading about Marilyn Monroe. A cherry orchard at night, houselights in the distance. It’s the painstaking neatness of a paint-by-number sunset, a yellowed letter held between graceful fingers, a cautious step into the sun-filled lobby of a famous hotel.
It’s the way I feel every time I think about Ava.”

I personally loved how open Emi was about her sexuality, this is not a coming out story and I thought that was really refreshing. But the thing I loved the most about this book is the characters and the importance LaCour gives to family. You will find yourself loving every character. Each one of them is described quite in detail and have special characteristics that make you fall in love with them immediately.

“Because in the conversation beneath this one, what we’re really saying is I am an imperfect person. Here are my failures. Do you want me anyway?”

My only problem was that I felt like not much was going on at certain points, but that didn’t really keep me from loving this story. Nina LaCour’s writing style will keep you going, you will want to know what will happen between Ava and Emi, you will want to savour every little description and detail Emi notices and you will want to remember her thoughts forever.

“The best things aren’t perfectly constructed. They aren’t illusions. they aren’t larger than life. They are life.”

All in all, it was a really cute fluffy book and if you haven’t read it already, you should give it a try!