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Title details for Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour - Available

Yerba Buena

A Novel

by Nina LaCour
Julia Whelan
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 2 copies available

"Full of sensory details, vivid characters, and moment after moment of gorgeously rendered ordinary life, this audiobook is a queer must-listen." -AudioFile

This program is masterfully narrated by award-winning "Golden Voice" narrator Julia Whelan.
Yerba Buena is the debut adult novel by the bestselling and award-winning YA author Nina LaCour, following two women on a star-crossed journey toward each other.
A Most Anticipated Book (Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, Vulture, NBC News, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Electric Lit, BookRiot, Bustle, Goodreads, LGBTQ Reads, Autostraddle, Veranda Magazine, The Lesbian Review, and more)
"A love story for our time."—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics
"This book is a precious thing."—Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop
When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern, yearning for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner.
The morning Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara's old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts.
At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a love story for our time and a propulsive journey through the lives of two women trying to find somewhere, or someone, to call home.
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    May 31, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250837837
      • File size: 231355 KB
      • Duration: 08:01:59

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 25, 2021
      In LaCour’s solid adult debut (after the YA novel Watch Over Me), two Los Angles women navigate the uncertainties of their 20s and their complicated pasts. Sara Foster ran away from home at 16 after her girlfriend died under mysterious circumstances that may have involved Sara’s family. Now she’s a bartender whose signature cocktails are in high demand at the popular restaurant Yerba Buena. Emilie Dubois, who is part Creole, spent her early life as the “steady daughter” and “good girl,” but with a sister in and out of rehab, her parents getting divorced, and her grandmother dying, she begins to search for her authentic self rather than continue passing as white and straight. After Emilie takes a job designing flowers at Yerba Buena, she embarks on an affair with the married owner, Jacob Lowell, while Sara occasionally takes home women from the bar. Though the chemistry is palpable between Emilie and Sara, the story turns out to be less about a love affair than what the women each need for themselves. Sometimes the alternating points of view between Sara and Emilie feel interchangeable, but LaCour writes with beauty and clarity about how a relationship is not a substitute for the characters’ mutual need to love themselves. This doesn’t break new ground, but it gets the job done.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Julia Whelan's quiet, graceful narration is the perfect match for Nina LaCour's flowing prose in this stunning, layered story about two queer women who are slowly finding their way to each other--and themselves. After her girlfriend's sudden death, 16-year-old Sarah leaves her hometown on the Russian River, looking for a new start in L.A. At the same time, L.A. native Emilie is struggling to find her path in life amid family drama and messy relationships. A dramatic narration would overpower the subtlety of this quiet yet powerful novel. Whelan's light touch highlights its emotional complexity without drawing attention from LaCour's immersive prose. Full of sensory details, vivid characters, and moment after moment of gorgeously rendered ordinary life, this audiobook is a queer must-listen. L.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2022

      YA author and Printz Award winner LaCour (We Are Okay) makes her adult debut with this tender novel about two women finding their way to each other through family trauma, self-doubt, and more. Sara Foster has been on her own since she arrived in LA as a 16-year-old runaway. Emilie DuBois is drifting, a perpetual undergraduate whose life has been unmoored by her sister's drug addiction. Emilie and Sara first meet at Yerba Buena, a trendy restaurant where Emilie does the flowers and Sara creates cocktails. The novel follows them as their lives weave together and come apart over several years and both women grapple with their families, their pasts, and the lives they want to build. Narrator Julia Whelan is also an award winner (including the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Golden Voice Award). Her emotional delivery perfectly complements LaCour's intimate novel. She subtly distinguishes between the two main characters, giving Sara a slightly brusquer edge to counter Emilie's wistful melancholy. VERDICT Anticipation for the novel and Whelan's prowess as a narrator makes this a first purchase.--Emily Calkins

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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