Everything Leads to You

Book Title: Everything Leads to You

Author: Nina LaCour

Date Started: July 23rd 2014

Date Completed: July 27th 2014

Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Mystery

Rating: Four stars

Review:

I was really excited to pick Everything Leads to You up, and though it was pretty much what I expected, it didn't blow me away. Having said that, I did really enjoy the story and it's a different sort of story to what's already out there.

Emi's brother is leaving for Europe, and his one condition to giving her and her best friend the apartment for the summer is that something amazing has to happen there. But with Emi's internship as a set designer being overruled all the time, and her ex-grilfriend hovering around, it seems like the summer isn't going to be as amazing as her brother had in mind. But when she finds a letter from a deceased superstar, it leads her on a mystery that could fulfil her brother's expectations.

I really liked LaCour's writing style. At first glance there isn't anything that immediately jumps out as amazing, but as you start to read, the flow of the words and dialogue makes it really easy to get lost in the story. Furthermore, you can tell the author knows what she's talking about, because the descriptions and explanations of the set design and the filmmaking process are so well written it perfectly captures the development in creating the atmosphere you'd expect. (I especially loved the references to 'the collapse of fantasy' and 'the love', since both are things I understand and encounter on a daily basis just through my ambition to be involved in filmmaking.)

Although the typical romantic contemporary storyline didn't really interest me very much, the reason I enjoyed this book so well was the other twists that many other novels in the genre don't offer. The first thing that I really liked about this plot was that the main mystery isn't about the main character. Instead, we're shown this outsider view of a puzzle that the characters have to work out. I thought this was a nice idea and came across really well since it allowed the book to have other important parts that then didn't conflict together.

Secondly, and definitely my favourite thing about this book, was the film elements. I was originally drawn to this book because of my interest in the film industry and filmmaking, and the inclusion of Emi's job as a set designer offered a new and interesting part of film I've never really thought too much about before. This was really the thing that kept me engaged where most contemporary novels would lose me.

Finally, the ending to the story was nice. The whole book was fairly predictable from the start, but the little diversions of each part of the story ended up working together to draw everything nicely to a close at the last page.

All the characters in Everything Leads to You are really nice. I loved the little friendship group, but all the other people the characters meet along the way are lovely. This was a little bit unrealistic to be honest, but I can't complain really.

I really liked Emi as the protagonist, though at times she did get on my nerves. It was really refreshing to have a confident lesbian character in Young Adult fiction for once, and I loved the way it wasn't used as an enormous plot point; it was just a part of who she was. My only issue was that she wasn't very practical some of the time, but that did make her more realistic.

My favourite character was Charlotte, and she is literally the best friend anyone could have. I feel like she actually ended up spending a lot of her time helping her friends when she didn't really get anything back. But she was fine with that, because they were her friends, and she was prepared to help them. I also really connected to the organised, but still kind of stressed side to her when it came to the filmmaking. I can really relate to that.

And finally, Ava. Ava was probably the most realistic character to me, because my opinion kept changing about her as we learnt more about her past, and then how she acted in different situations. I'm still not sure whether I like her or not, but I think the point is that she's going through a hard time, so she does act in differently at times, but that's what makes her work well with Emi.

There was a really nice, steady pace throughout the whole book. It's not a particularly fast story, and each event is small, but adds up to the whole thing.

I'd recommend Everything Leads to You to anyone who enjoys contemporary, and also to anyone who's interested in the filming industry. There's a really nice balance between the romantic side, the mystery elements, and the filmmaking process, so if one thing doesn't sit that well with you, there's something else to back up the story.

Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/

show/18667779-everything-leads-to-you