Book Review: Everything Leads to You

Everything Leads to You

By Nina LaCour

(Finished reading: 04/06/2020)

3/5 stars

“We love films because they makes us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into the eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken.”

Everything Leads to You follows 18-year-old Emi who is an interning as a set designer in the LA film industry, all thanks to her brother Toby. When Toby leaves his apartment to Emi and her friend Charlotte for the summer whilst he scouts movie locations is London, he makes Emi promise to do something epic with the place. Then Emi comes across a mysterious letter whilst hunting for props at the estate sale in the mansion of a recently deceased silver screen legend. Emi is certain that this mystery is going to lead her to something epic so her and Charlotte begin to investigate.

I was really excited about the concept of this book, the insight into the film industry, the LGBT+ representation and the LA scenery. And these things were definitely there, I just don’t think they lived up to my expectations quite in the way that I had hoped for. After recently reading We Are Okay, I had high hopes for similarly beautiful writing, but this book was nowhere near as perfect. I think my main issue with it was the pacing. It all felt a little stilted, it dragged in places, “Part 1” was particularly slow. I just found we were given too much unnecessary detail all the way through which slowed the pace down significantly. And yet, the ending felt very sudden and slightly rushed. I would have liked less detail throughout and more closure at the end. For example, some of the dialogue became very long-winded and almost like monologues. This could have been effective if it was written well but it just felt a little clumsy and tiring in places. Also, the mystery wasn’t quite as exciting as I had anticipated. I found myself more excited to get back to the sub-plot surrounding the film-making aspects which was a shame as I wanted to be excited about the mystery too. It’s definitely much more about the romance than it is about the mystery, which is perfectly ok considering it makes a nice summery read. But I just feel like it could have been so much more than this and I would have preferred a more compelling mystery to accompany the love interest.

 

Following on from this, I didn’t think the characters or the romance was particularly special. I didn’t feel very invested in Emi other than in my appreciation for her passion for film. I didn’t feel like I really got to know any of the characters in any great detail which made me feel very detached from the story. I don’t know much about the film industry, but even with a way in, it seems very unlikely that an 18-year-old intern would have so much control over some of the projects that Emi is given. They all felt too professional for young adults who have just graduated from high school. This isn’t to say that 18-year-olds cannot be mature or professional, it’s more that I don’t usually expect this sort of maturity from a few teenagers enjoying a summer of freedom. Considering the book is marketed as a romance, we don’t even get a lot of romance. I think this was partly because with the film schedule and a mystery to unravel, so the characters simply lacked the time to enjoy their freedom. In a book about a teen romance, I expect to see freedom, immaturity and mistakes, not busy schedules. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the novel had been centred on the mystery aspects, but it was definitely centred on the romance throughout and so I just expected more from this. I suppose it does break the mould of typical coming of age stories, I just didn’t think it was particularly successful at doing this. Perhaps it would have worked better if the characters were older as this would have avoided this problem, but I quite liked that it was YA, it just needed to capture this better in order to feel right.

Despite this, I really enjoyed the book purely because of the film aspects. I felt very invested in the film Yes & Yes, which Emi is working on as production designer for the project. The concept of this film was really interesting and I loved reading the extracts from the screen play. I would love to see the full feature film as I didn’t feel like we got an idea of the finished film in the book due to the ending. I was fascinated by production aspects too. I feel as though I learned so much about location scouting and set designing. I could really feel Emi’s artistic passion flying through the pages as we see her building each of her sets with every little detail. I have a newfound appreciation for set design and think I will look extra carefully at the film sets when I watch films in future! I think this ties in nicely to the theme throughout the book of “the collapse of fantasy” and this idea that knowing what goes into films breaks the illusions that they create. As someone who has studied media studies in the past, I could fully resonate with this and it tied nicely to the discussion of romance and getting to know someone for the first time. I liked how this book gave us this behind the scenes glimpse of films all while entangled with mystery and romance. I would love to try and find more books that capture this mysterious side to film.

Overall, the concept was promising but the execution let it down for me. I think this is purely because my expectations were so high after reading, We Are Okay, but it was nice to see the growth in LaCour’s writing between the two books. It’s always nice to see how authors develop their writing as it just highlights how much work and dedication goes into writing each novel. I adored the film parts of this book and will definitely be on the hunt for more books that focus on the film industry for this reason. I’ve recently discovered that I love this trope in books that focus on a fictional artists or pieces of art. For example, Night Film, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and the Six etc. I’m not sure what this genre is called but I definitely want more of it!!