Review: Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour

The Premise: The book follows the protagonist Emi Price, who is currently in highschool and interns part-time as a young production designer. She works with her best friend Charlotte and her brother leaves her his apartment for the summer as a type of graduation gift. He has one condition for her and that is for something great to take place in the apartment while he is away. He wants it to be more than simply throwing a big party. The main story begins when Emi and Charlotte come across a letter written by a famous Hollywood star and the letter is written in the event of his death. The actor has already passed by the time they get the letter, but they decide to embark on a journey to deliver the letter to the person it is written to. While dealing with this, juggling her production job, Emi is also very much dealing with the problems of her love life, where she is learning to come to terms with the sixth break-up of her girlfriend, Morgan. The entire story is woven with multiple narratives, Emi's love life, her work and ambitions and the mystery of the letter.

My overall thoughts and review: So without spoiling anything, it was overall a really enjoyable read. It was really refreshing and enjoyable to read a book where the main character is LGBT, but it wasn't the focal point of the narrative and by that I mean, it is already canon, there was no need to explain it. It is what it is, and the character was proud and happy as she is and it was just so lovely to read from. Emi definitely was a frustrating character at times when she was dealing with Morgan (sixth breakup?!?! I was getting angry for Emi!), but her experiences were definitely relatable in terms of dealing with heartbreak and first loves. The best thing about Emi, for me, is her creativity. It is so fascinating learning about the production design world, and how significant it is and how much work it takes to find one piece of furniture for a film set, because no one really stops and thinks, "I wonder where that couch came from" when watching a movie. It was like a behind the scenes perspective over the film industry. It was really nice that within Emi's story, is multiple other stories, each character had such a complex personality that it was so interesting to read about them. Even the fact that there was a film being produced, and there were scenes of the script, that was so intriguing! Overall, I really enjoyed this contemporary read. It was a great story about movies, love, friendship and family. It was well-written, fascinating and all around enticing. I definitely recommend it. I also really really love the cover, it is stunning!

Rating for the book: 4/5 stars.