Nina LaCour Shares 5 Books About Loneliness (That Make Us Feel Less Alone)

Nina LaCour’s lean and mesmerizing We Are Okay, one of our favorite books of 2017, was recently honored with the Printz Award, among the highest honors in young adult lit. This gorgeous tale opens on an east coast dorm emptying out for the winter holidays. As her classmates head home, Marin steels herself for days of isolation, broken only by a visit from her best friend, Mabel. Despite previously sharing everything, including a brief but heady romance, Marin left Mabel behind without warning following the sudden death of her grandfather, her only known relative. In LaCour’s wonderful, deceptively spare meditation on grief and loneliness, two stories unfold in tandem: the tentative, delicately wrought detente between the two girls in the present day, as they navigate both the snowbound college campus and their own emotional baggage, and Marin’s former life in San Francisco, full of hazy beach days, a passionate love for her home city, and a warm but incomplete relationship with her grandparent-guardian, whose passing ripped more than one hole in her life.
Here’s LaCour to share some of the inspirations behind her Printz honoree, five books that, in their focus on loneliness, offer comfort to readers.

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
One of the major inspirations for We Are Okay, Charlotte Brontë’s story of the strong-willed, smart, and passionate Jane is a study in loneliness.

Finding Yvonne, by Brandy Colbert
It isn’t out until August, but Brandy Colbert’s Finding Yvonne is worth preordering immediately. Yvonne has a great best friend, a couple love interests, and several caring adults in her life, but her mother is missing and the person she truly wants to be close to is her father, whose demanding career and old wounds make him difficult to connect to.

I’ll Give You the Sun, by Jandy Nelson
Sometimes we are most lonely when there is a rift between ourselves and someone we love. Twins Noah and Jude experience this in Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun, and every time I read her vibrant, beautiful prose my heart breaks for them.

The Mothers, by Brit Bennett
Brit Bennett’s The Mothers radiates loneliness. Seventeen and bereft, Nadia navigates life after her mother’s suicide and makes a series of choices and mistakes that are as relatable and understandable as they are self-destructive.

The Lion and the Bird, by Marianne Dubuc
Marianne Dubuc’s gentle and moving The Lion and the Bird is one of my favorite picture books of all time. It isn’t until Lion knows true friendship that he feels lonely without it.
We Are Okay is available now.