The novel’s themes of drug and sexual abuse, death, abandonment, and purposelessness could easily feel contrived - a sloppy attempt by the author to throw in some darker elements and call it an adult novel. These jumps are carefully paced and placed, allowing the reader to better understand the characters while also maintaining a cohesive narrative. The book’s timeline is not always linear - there are quite a few flashbacks - and the narrative alternates between following Sara and Emilie, but LaCour navigates these potentially confusing structural choices with ease. LaCour, then, helps her readers understand Sara and Emilie by taking significant time to elaborate on their complex histories and backgrounds, telling their stories over the course of several years.

In a novel driven by character rather than plot such as this one, much of the story’s effectiveness rests on the reader’s ability to sympathize and empathize with the protagonists. Multidimensional, believable, and likable, readers become invested in their development. The novel’s first key success is its ability to craft main characters Sara Foster and Emilie DuBois. Like its namesake cocktail drink, “Yerba Buena” is an understated, bittersweet, and overall brilliant creation. It is an exploration of pain, trauma, and healing as well as passion and purpose, all while taking the time to notice and appreciate life’s simple pleasures. It is a story of love, yes, but also of friendship, family, death, betrayal, loss, and identity. Colorful and simple on the surface, “Yerba Buena” is simultaneously dark and rich in complexity.

It follows Sara as she runs away from her home in Northern California at 16 to establish a new life in Los Angeles, as well as Emilie’s self-exploration as she lives, works, and grows in Long Beach and the LA area.Īs LaCour’s first venture into adult fiction after publishing several young adult (YA) novels, this unassuming, marketed-as-romance novel could easily have been a flop. Although “Yerba Buena” focuses on the pair’s eventual romance, the novel also spends a significant amount of time with each individual character. The narrative follows two women - Sara Foster and Emilie DuBois - from their teens to late twenties as they navigate major life transitions, choices, and changes. Beneath the simple, bright cover of Nina LaCour’s “Yerba Buena” lies a story with similar qualities.

Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour