Review: Everything Leads to You

EVERYTHING LEADS TO YOU

by Nina LaCour

Pages: 307 (Hardback)

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Publication Date: May 15th 2014

ISBN: 0525425888

Summary 

A wunderkind young set designer, Emi has already started to find her way in the competitive Hollywood film world. Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met. She has a tumultuous, not-so-glamorous past, and lives an unconventional life. She’s enigmatic…. She’s beautiful. And she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

Review

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not a little bit in love with this book. It's ridiculously adorable and unbelievably honest. The story feel real, even raw at times, like it could be happening right now and then there was the fact that the characters are so easy to connect with it made reading this story all the more heart warming. Everything Leads To You is a sweet and frank story about a heartbroken girl in search of something more. Something epic.

"The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. They aren't larger than life. They are life."

This is the story of Emi. An eighteen-year-old intern at a film studio, with a broken heart and a mysterious letter she and her friend Charlotte found at an estate sale. The book is a first person account of how this one girl deals with heart ache and how something (or someone) can come out of nowhere and flip your life upside down. 

Everything Leads To You is set in an environment I haven't read about before. The scenes where the author describes Emi's though process and her love for her job as a set designer are completely mesmerizing and pull you into the text. When Emi’s on a set it’s like she’s painting a picture. She’s creating something entrancing.  

It's not all film sets and breath-taking redheads though. This book also has its grittier side. Ava may be unlike anyone Emi has ever met but Ava's life has been anything but easy leaving her with some serious, deep seeded issues. Throughout the story you're left with the question of whether or not Ava will be able to pull her life in the right direction. Whether or not she's strong enough to embrace her future and move forward from her past. But Emi believes in her and even when we're hearing all the harsh realities of Ava's lineage we get to see they're relationship blossom. 

So many feels right now I can’t quite control myself!

I feel like I should mention that this story is about a lesbian relationship, which I personally haven't read about before in YA. I know there are same sex story all over the place but this is the first one I've read. In all honesty? It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. The love story at the centre of this plot is so sweet and worthwhile that gender didn't even come into it for me. Not even a little bit. 

Okay so I'm going to have to admit that this book does have a flaw and as much as I enjoyed reading it, Everything Leads To You was beyond predictable. There was no subtlety and the plot was very open. Nothing was hidden away waiting for the reader to discover it; it was all very much on the surface. However, I think that because of the nature of this book it didn't matter so much. If it had been some kind of thriller then, yes, the writing style would have made reading this book dull. But this wasn't a thriller, it was a contemporary and maybe it could have done with leaving a little more for the reader to discover over time but it didn't overly affect the way you look at this book. 

All in all Everything Leads To You is a sweet and honest story that will leave you with a smile on your face. It's an easy and enjoyable read that I'd highly recommend to anyone with a soft spot for a good story. It has a couple you can't help but root for and the fact that the author makes you wait for it makes it all the more special. 

"It's what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth. I'm seeing her for the first time. Not Ava Garden Wilder, the rags-to-riches granddaughter of Clyde Jones. Not a tragic, romantic heroine.  

Just Ava. 

And I am utterly in love."