#Review: EVERYTHING LEADS TO YOU by Nina LaCour

EVERYTHING LEADS TO YOU

Author: Nina LaCour
Series: N/A
Source: Purchased from Chapters
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: May 15, 2014
Rating: 3/5 stars

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.

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

So it's not that this was a bad book - and it wasn't necessarily an excellent book - it just fell somewhere in the middle. It felt as though it was 100 pages too long and the "mystery" is solved too soon for my liking. All that being said, I did enjoy the romance and I definitely enjoy LaCour's writing style. 

I liked getting a behind the scenes look at the Hollywood lifestyle. I liked seeing the "movie magic" aspect and what actually goes into the production side of filmmaking because it is something I never really even thought of? Set designers do so much to make you forget it is a background and I liked seeing Emi's process.

The characters were okay. They didn't stand out in my mind and I wasn't really rooting for any of them. They were just kind of there. I think for how long this book was and how focused on characterization it wanted to be, it just didn't quite pull it off. I did however like the relationship between Ava and Emi so there were some shining character moments.

But this was listed under "interracial relationship" for #Sapphicathon and I was anticipating more for that? Emi is a quarter black and while that does have impact in her life, I felt it to be nothing of note in the text itself. Emi was extremely privileged and didn't really question this or her thoughts even when she was called out on it. It just felt like an add-on rather than a fully thought out part of Emi's character.

So this is middle of the road for me. It's not the best book I've ever read but it's also not the worst. I liked the depictions of the movie sets but I wish there had been more time spent on characters. I think this is one you have to read for yourself to see whether or not you like it.