Publication: November 10th, 2020 by Ooligan Press
Pages: 256
Genre: YA Contemporary
Copy: *Note: I work for the publisher, Ooligan Press, as a student in the Book Publishing program at Portland State and received a copy for free as a result. Although I did not work on this book, I am extremely proud and excited about this release and highly encourage everyone to check it out!
Summary: Fifteen-year-old Laurel Summers couldn’t tell you the last words she spoke to her mother and siblings if her life depended on it. But she will never forget the image of her mother’s mangled green car on the freeway, shattering the boring world Laurel had been so desperate to escape. Now she can’t stop seeing the ghosts of her family members, which haunt her with memories of how life used to be back when her biggest problem was the kiss she shared with her best friend Hanna.
After the accident, Laurel and her dad are left to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Her dad is struggling with his grief and depression, unable to cope with the loss of his family. He seeks a way out of his pain, leaving Laurel behind while he struggles to cope with his own mental illness. She is desperate to find a way to hold everything together again and help her father come to terms with the loss so he can come back to her.
Laurel tries to make sense of her pain with the help of her grandparents, her two best friends, and some random strangers. As she struggles to understand who she is without her family, she must come to terms with the items on her List of Things Not to Talk About, learn to trust her dad again, and—on top of it all—keep her heart open to love in the wake of her immense loss, eventually learning that it’s okay to not be okay.
— Erin Moynihan, Laurel Everywhere
This book is a phenomenally heartbreaking exploration of grief and mental health. I tend not to read many books like this that center around loss, but I'm so glad I decided to give this one a try; I zoomed through this book in only a few hours and experienced so many intense emotions in that time. As someone who does not have a lot of experience with grief, especially not to the extent that Laurel deals with, this book gave me a real and raw look into what it might be like. I usually try to avoid thinking about losing people close to me, especially my family, but reading this book actually made me realize just how lucky I am to have them. There's nothing like reading a book like this to really snap into perspective how fragile life is and how important it is to cherish time spent with loved ones.
Moynihan does a fantastic job of creating relatable and lovable characters; I grew especially attached to Laurel and immensely enjoyed reading from her perspective. Even as she struggles with losing her family, coming to terms with her sexuality and her feelings for her best friend, and forgiving her dad and the man who killed her family, she still finds love and compassion in her heart for herself and others. Although reading about Laurel's struggles in such a candid way was hard, there were so many great moments and insights from her that got me through.
Moynihan's writing is beautiful and raw, and extremely impressive considering this is her debut. I can't wait to see what else she has in store for us in the future!
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