Scan barcode
endofpricetag's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
mostlymady's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
rhankes's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A beautiful book (best consumed by audiobook in my opinion) with some major trigger warnings
anastasiaaa's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
spenkevich's review against another edition
4.0
'I lost nearly everything, and then I built something better.'
The key to a good mixed drink is a perfect balance of ingredients to allow them to complement and enhance each other without overpowering. It is the collective amalgamation of flavors to become something greater than the sum of their parts. This idea is central to the two women in Yerba Buena, the first adult novel from Nina Lacour, as they seek to strike a productive balance in their lives and, ultimately, in their romantic endeavors with one another. This is a novel bursting with sensory details, from perfectly cooked meals, the smells and vibes of living spaces, and a cocktail made from the titular yerba buena herb, a plant native to California much like Sara and Emilie. As a former bartender, the appreciation of a perfect drink to match a mood was quite delightful. While the novel never quite achieves it’s own balance, it is a heartfelt look at aspirations and an interesting juxtaposition of identity, with Sara hoping to break the cycle of drugs and death that surrounds her family while Emilie leans into her Creol heritage and generations of builders in her family. Yerba Buena traverses the darkness of the world with hopes that love and perseverance will arrive triumphantly on the other side in a bittersweet yet empowering novel about family, hard work and embracing who you are and want to be.
‘Here was the taste of it — a little bitter, a little sweet, some citrus brightness, maybe honey. And here was meaning. A home, hers alone.’
The novel is divided into two sections, rotating the story of Sara, a teenager who escapes her father and hometown after the death of her girlfriend and becomes a local-celebrity bartender, with Emilie, a young woman who can’t seem to find her calling in life and fears everything is passing her by. The two are very much looking to define themselves in contrast to their families. Sara is hoping to escape the past while Emilie struggles with a tepid relationship with her rehab-frequenting sister and, for a time, caring for her aging grandmother. While Emilie has tender family moments, such as a moving scene where her father and her lay in the yard of his childhood home to watch a plane pass just above them, Sara’s memories of family only cause her pain. Even Spencer, her younger brother she cares for, seems headed down a dark path she tried so hard to escape.
‘So this was how it felt—to be dealt a blow, to pause, to keep going in spite of it. Not to start over but to continue.’
With the idea of balancing out the recipe for a life, we see how many ingredients have to be cut to not ruin the whole. In many occasions in this novel, it is the toxicity of men that threatens to overpower. Jacob is a prime example, who’s complete disregard for his family is disturbing, but also serves as a reminder to Emilie of everything she isn’t and finds herself lacking a self-identity to instead be an ornament for someone else.
We see much of her story being about finding roots, finding purpose, finding a self. For Sara is is finding a self despite, or even perhaps in spite, of her situations. Men again become a toxic counteracting force, even adult men who she thought she could trust who are quick to exert their power over her for sexual pleasure. While Grant is viewed as one of the few who don’t exert a negative force, he also becomes a weight she feels she cannot carry in order to thrive. The perfect mixture is still to be found.
Unfortunately, a lack of balance also makes the story sludge forward, often languishing under the weight of details. Told in chronological order, the novel sometimes loses its tightness of effect and feels like it is searching for itself as much as these characters are, which can arguably be a decision that allows us to simmer in the moments of life. However, the segments for each character become long and by the time it returns to the other they feel like an afterthought, with the two storylines not meshing or collaborating like ingredients of a cocktail. The third person narration tends to flatten them a bit as well, and Sara in the Emilie sections occasionally reads unfamiliar to the Sara in her own sections. There is a noticeable lack of Emilie in the Sara sections as well, which is a shame because they have such excellent chemistry in the Emilie sections. I can’t help but wonder if the novel would have benefited from being contained to one character with the background information of the other arriving disjointedly in briefer asides. Though with Sara’s fixation on abandonment this may explain her pushing Emilie out of her mind.
This could also very much be personal taste, but it often feels like juggling too much to the detriment of the collective whole. That said, life is messy and not a narrative, so I also respect that. ‘Sara wanted a moral from the old man’s story,’ we are told at one point, ‘but in its absence, she created one for herself; she belonged there, just as much as any of them did.’ And in all its messy glory, yes, these characters deserve their space. It helps that they are so lovable in all their flaws and foibles.
‘It’s all about your intentions.’
There are some beautiful moments though that mostly overpower any complaints, and while much of the dark aspects tends to be fairy at arms length without much introspection, the moments when a character starts to question their functions in the larger whole of society is quite lovely. Sara, for example, witnesses a drunk teenage party and stops to reflect on her own job as a bartender. ‘Maybe she was just like her father, selling drugs,’ she thinks, ‘only she dressed them up and made them sweeter.’ And that speaks so much to the heart of this novel: none of us are perfect, we all have our pains and our plans, and hopefully we can achieve them in ways that help others instead of harm them. And also what home means and how to find one.
‘My favorite thing about my home is sharing it with the people I love.’
The tender moments of this novel really strike a chord and you will easily find yourself rooting for these characters to make it work. There is a specific sense of realizing you are not a teenager anymore and hoping you aren’t falling behind in life that really pulls the heartstrings and this novel works best when it is a character study into these emotions. There are a lot of characters, each well designed with their own trajectories that the two focal characters must contend with, the sister Collette being one I quite enjoyed every scene with. Lacour excels at leaving a lot of character just below the surface while still giving essential glimpses into what must lurk beneath. Though she also has a tendency to use names to a degree that seemed excessive. Overall it is a successfully quiet novel, albeit one that seems to have too many details to fit its quietude, but I do love a queer romance and a coming-of-age tale set later in life. It is sure to please fans of authors like [a:Sally Rooney|15860970|Sally Rooney|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1534007127p2/15860970.jpg]. While Yerba Buena may not have the pacing perfect, it still cuts right to the heart and leaves you with a good feeling bursting from within.
3.5/5
The key to a good mixed drink is a perfect balance of ingredients to allow them to complement and enhance each other without overpowering. It is the collective amalgamation of flavors to become something greater than the sum of their parts. This idea is central to the two women in Yerba Buena, the first adult novel from Nina Lacour, as they seek to strike a productive balance in their lives and, ultimately, in their romantic endeavors with one another. This is a novel bursting with sensory details, from perfectly cooked meals, the smells and vibes of living spaces, and a cocktail made from the titular yerba buena herb, a plant native to California much like Sara and Emilie. As a former bartender, the appreciation of a perfect drink to match a mood was quite delightful. While the novel never quite achieves it’s own balance, it is a heartfelt look at aspirations and an interesting juxtaposition of identity, with Sara hoping to break the cycle of drugs and death that surrounds her family while Emilie leans into her Creol heritage and generations of builders in her family. Yerba Buena traverses the darkness of the world with hopes that love and perseverance will arrive triumphantly on the other side in a bittersweet yet empowering novel about family, hard work and embracing who you are and want to be.
‘Here was the taste of it — a little bitter, a little sweet, some citrus brightness, maybe honey. And here was meaning. A home, hers alone.’
The novel is divided into two sections, rotating the story of Sara, a teenager who escapes her father and hometown after the death of her girlfriend and becomes a local-celebrity bartender, with Emilie, a young woman who can’t seem to find her calling in life and fears everything is passing her by. The two are very much looking to define themselves in contrast to their families. Sara is hoping to escape the past while Emilie struggles with a tepid relationship with her rehab-frequenting sister and, for a time, caring for her aging grandmother. While Emilie has tender family moments, such as a moving scene where her father and her lay in the yard of his childhood home to watch a plane pass just above them, Sara’s memories of family only cause her pain. Even Spencer, her younger brother she cares for, seems headed down a dark path she tried so hard to escape.
‘So this was how it felt—to be dealt a blow, to pause, to keep going in spite of it. Not to start over but to continue.’
With the idea of balancing out the recipe for a life, we see how many ingredients have to be cut to not ruin the whole. In many occasions in this novel, it is the toxicity of men that threatens to overpower. Jacob is a prime example, who’s complete disregard for his family is disturbing, but also serves as a reminder to Emilie of everything she isn’t and finds herself lacking a self-identity to instead be an ornament for someone else.
‘[S]he’d been a flower. Snipped from the root, quick to wild, temporary. She’d existed to be lovely and to be chosen. No one had expected her to last.’
We see much of her story being about finding roots, finding purpose, finding a self. For Sara is is finding a self despite, or even perhaps in spite, of her situations. Men again become a toxic counteracting force, even adult men who she thought she could trust who are quick to exert their power over her for sexual pleasure. While Grant is viewed as one of the few who don’t exert a negative force, he also becomes a weight she feels she cannot carry in order to thrive. The perfect mixture is still to be found.
Unfortunately, a lack of balance also makes the story sludge forward, often languishing under the weight of details. Told in chronological order, the novel sometimes loses its tightness of effect and feels like it is searching for itself as much as these characters are, which can arguably be a decision that allows us to simmer in the moments of life. However, the segments for each character become long and by the time it returns to the other they feel like an afterthought, with the two storylines not meshing or collaborating like ingredients of a cocktail. The third person narration tends to flatten them a bit as well, and Sara in the Emilie sections occasionally reads unfamiliar to the Sara in her own sections. There is a noticeable lack of Emilie in the Sara sections as well, which is a shame because they have such excellent chemistry in the Emilie sections. I can’t help but wonder if the novel would have benefited from being contained to one character with the background information of the other arriving disjointedly in briefer asides. Though with Sara’s fixation on abandonment this may explain her pushing Emilie out of her mind.
This could also very much be personal taste, but it often feels like juggling too much to the detriment of the collective whole. That said, life is messy and not a narrative, so I also respect that. ‘Sara wanted a moral from the old man’s story,’ we are told at one point, ‘but in its absence, she created one for herself; she belonged there, just as much as any of them did.’ And in all its messy glory, yes, these characters deserve their space. It helps that they are so lovable in all their flaws and foibles.
‘It’s all about your intentions.’
There are some beautiful moments though that mostly overpower any complaints, and while much of the dark aspects tends to be fairy at arms length without much introspection, the moments when a character starts to question their functions in the larger whole of society is quite lovely. Sara, for example, witnesses a drunk teenage party and stops to reflect on her own job as a bartender. ‘Maybe she was just like her father, selling drugs,’ she thinks, ‘only she dressed them up and made them sweeter.’ And that speaks so much to the heart of this novel: none of us are perfect, we all have our pains and our plans, and hopefully we can achieve them in ways that help others instead of harm them. And also what home means and how to find one.
‘My favorite thing about my home is sharing it with the people I love.’
The tender moments of this novel really strike a chord and you will easily find yourself rooting for these characters to make it work. There is a specific sense of realizing you are not a teenager anymore and hoping you aren’t falling behind in life that really pulls the heartstrings and this novel works best when it is a character study into these emotions. There are a lot of characters, each well designed with their own trajectories that the two focal characters must contend with, the sister Collette being one I quite enjoyed every scene with. Lacour excels at leaving a lot of character just below the surface while still giving essential glimpses into what must lurk beneath. Though she also has a tendency to use names to a degree that seemed excessive. Overall it is a successfully quiet novel, albeit one that seems to have too many details to fit its quietude, but I do love a queer romance and a coming-of-age tale set later in life. It is sure to please fans of authors like [a:Sally Rooney|15860970|Sally Rooney|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1534007127p2/15860970.jpg]. While Yerba Buena may not have the pacing perfect, it still cuts right to the heart and leaves you with a good feeling bursting from within.
3.5/5
hookerkitty's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
mysteriesofmar's review against another edition
4.0
no idea how to rate this as I'm super conflicted, but it got really good towards the end
liseannew's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25