This was a really nice read. The characters were well fleshed out and I liked the pacing of the story. I would recommend this book!

I have tried to read this book, but it wasn't for me. The book deals with some serious and important themes and I am sure it would appeal to many people

Give this book time; think of this as a good, strong tea: it needs time to seep. It is so full of queer rep and it ends up being a very satisfying read.

Educational and kept me intrigued. Many tips and pointers. I look forward to reading more by this author.

I would like to thank NineStar Press and the Netgalley website for allowing me to read this book.

We find Kat who loved the beaches of Grand Barachois, her summer residence for a few years now. She lived in her own world with her friends except that one summer everything changed and she had to flee that world.

Now, at seventeen years old, she returns to university full of regrets. She ran away from her friends and got into a relationship with the worst person in the world. Six months later she still has bad dreams about it. To take her mind off things she returns to Grand-Barachois. Once there, everything seems different, even though some of her friends from that time are still there.

She meets Tristan and becomes his friend. Together they do what Kat and her friends have never been able to do before. Except that Kat's past catches up with her and for her it's hard to forget everything like that.

A book read in one go so much I was immediately hooked on the story so moving in some parts, captivating, gripping, addictive, full of intrigue, suspense and twists with very endearing characters. I love the author's writing. I can't wait to discover more of her books.

I loved the summer vibe of this book. I have an issue with comparing every summer book to Sarah Dessen books and The Summer I Turned Pretty series and those are held high in my opinion so it’s hard for me to judge them.

I received a copy of this book from net galley in exchange for an honest review.
I will start by saying I didn't finish this book. I got about 45% of the way through before I wanted to read something else.
I think the overall tone of the book was too sad for me to want to continue reading and dealt with very sensitive themes and LGBTQ representation. Overall, the sensitive themes were dealt with well, but not great, and the story progressed very slowly, to the point that I wasn't invested enough to continue.
I think the main issue is that there were a lot of characters of none of them were able to be fully developed.

If we were only talking about the plot and the things that are happening in the present, it would be an easy, fun book. But there’s also the past, all the memories Kat struggles with (and frankly, everyone else), and that makes it a heavy one. It’s handled in a way that you don’t really notice it, though, apart from your heart going out for those kids.

We Go Together touches on a number of difficult topics, doesn’t shy away from anything that could be seen as uncomfortable, because really, life isn’t always comfortable. It feels very real, it feels like something any of us could go through. And at its core, it’s not really a book about hardships and traumas, it’s a book about a group of kids going through life together, supporting each other, loving each other.

It’s a very melancholic novel, despite also being a summery one. It blends together wonderfully that wholesome feeling coming from friendship (especially friendship between LGBT folks) and the heavy topics. It’s gonna make you cry, but you will be happy about it.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This book was very good! It was a simple, contemporary book. By that I mean there wasn’t a whole lot going on, but it was still very entertaining. There was a lot of drama, but it was fairly low key and easy to read.

I really liked all of the different characters. It was interesting that they were all so different, but all such good friends. It was fun that they all got to meet up again after a few years, even the ones that just popped by to say hello. I also liked the character development of Kat. I liked seeing her go from a timid, shy girl, to a woman that was not afraid to share her opinions.

I feel terrible for saying this, but I did get a little tired of her at some points. She was always like “Did he assault me or did he not?”. I feel terrible for getting tired of that, but it felt excessively long and too drawn out.

I think it would be nice if we got a sequel. Just to see if they all get together again and what happens with her and her love interest. I don’t believe there will be one, but it would be cool. Overall, this book was very good and I would definitely recommend it to a contemporary lover or someone looking for an easy and fun book to read.

Abigail de Niverville's We Go Together is an interesting coming of age tale.

Kat is a main character who fully comes to life, and the reader gets a good long into her trauma.
She reconnects with old friends in a way that is honest and true to real life. I love that her relationship are illustrated realistically, as some come and go, with some friendships are solid, yet not very deep. It's a fascinating look into relationships, and I enjoy the way it's all handled.

The author approaches everything with care and compassion, as she brings Kat through her self awakening. There are some heavy aspects but it's a wonderful read.

Beautiful story, even though there are plenty of heartbreaking moments. And the cover is just so lovely too.

I received an ARC of WE GO TOGETHER by Abigail de Neverville thanks to the publisher through NetGalley.

First and foremost I want to give a content warning for the book. While there is nothing explicit, there is a large rape theme (and learning what being a victim means). It is a really tough topic and the author did a wonderful job portraying the emotions one goes through with intimate partner rape.

At the beginning of the book, we learn that Kat is trying to cope with an event that happened and a sudden breakup. To help deal with these emotional issues she escapes to her great aunt Kay’s house where she used to spend the summer. When she gets there those memories of her past summers with her ‘summer friends’ has her craving an easier, more innocent life. As those friends start to trickle back to town, she realizes that forgetting isn’t the answer.

This book is a tough read because it is really well done. There are enough hints of the event early on that if you need an out, you know without needing to encounter the potential triggers. There is so much emotion and sadness and trauma poured into these pages that I saw myself in them., which was really hard, but so needed for teens (which is truly terrible).

WE GO TOGETHER reminds me of THE WAY I USED TO BE and multiple books by Sarah Dressen. I really recommend this ‘what happens after’ story in a summery setting.

I'm not a crier but this story had me sniffling. It comes with a warning and it should because there are a lot of hard subjects in here that may have people overlooking this well written story that will have your heart in a grip from beginning to end. I don't shy away from the hard books because then you might miss something amazing. Check this out. Happy reading!

It's been a long time since I've shed a few tears reading but, this book spoke to me in ways I could not predict.

Kat's journey goes through a lengthy period of questioning and doubting herself, something - even though we might not share the same trauma as her - everyone has experienced at some point in their lives. The author, Abigail de Niverville, manages to convey the turmoil of her main character through realistic conversations and behaviors with her family and friends.

Of course, everyone process their trauma differently, but the way Kat does is true-to-life. Despite her constant round-trip to that one person and that one defining moment, I found Kat to be brave and the author made me root for her since the beginning of the book.

Actually, the author made me root for every member of the Summer Six.

As she is trying to figure things out, Kat rekindles with her old summer friends she has lost touch with. It is a weird time where everyone has to basically reintroduce themselves while sharing a lot of memories and it gives us a glimpse at how the past and the present may work together.

They, the Summer Six, all have their history, their burdens and even though not much time is spent on every one of them it is enough for us, the readers, to have a good understanding of who they are and what are their struggles. If found them endearing through and through.

Their journey alongside Kat's is inspiring.

It would have been easy to dwell on nostalgia but that's not what this book is about.
It is about acknowledging the past and moving forward and I think the author did a great job not going all dark and angsty. Though the main theme is profoundly heavy, there is lightness and little sparks of joy from the first to the last page and perhaps this is why I cried a few times, because We Go Together is a slice of life that is relatable in every way.

I will definitely check Abigail de Niverville's previous book and keep an eye out for the next ones. May they be as lifelike and captivating as We Go Together.

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest reviewl.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into crime books and psychological ones too however I wanted to take the opportunity to read something from outside my norm. And I am glad I did!! Thank you for  opening up my mind to something totally different.

We Go Together

We Go Together by Abigail de Niverville

Well this book just seemed like a jumbled mess to me. There was so many random characters and stories it made me think of someone off their ADHD medicine trying to write a story! I think if it was cleaned up and the stories more organized and separated it would be great! To many stories in this new book that didn’t get enough attention

3 Stars

TW for past of sexual assault and grooming (protagonist remembers and recounts said events).

This is ownvoices for bi rep, but there are also gay characters, a trans character, and one character who never puts a label on themselves. Also, two of the gay characters are indigenous Canadian.

This book is about Kat returning to the beach she used to go to as a kid to hide from the nightmare plaguing her about her ex. The book is about reconnecting with her summer friends and making new ones, namely Tristan. She’s also trying to parse out what happened to her. It’s also about growing up and recapturing the feelings of being a kid.

While I appreciate the themes, the cast isn’t that memorable. I appreciate the diverse cast other than the sexualities, as the MC has eczema, two of the friends being indigenous Canadians who are gay and bi, and one of the group dealing with prison. Other than that, they didn’t have stand out personality/voices. I did feel their love for each other at least.

The romance was definitely a slow burn, sneaking up on you until the end. I really liked how the relationship ended up.

A large part of the internal conflict is Kat trying to figure out what her last relationship was. I really appreciate that she didn’t immediately know if her relationship was abusive. Not all abusive relationships are clearly abusive, and this book delves into that as well as Kat figuring out if she did consent to sex. It also discusses how muddled concepts of consent are thanks to societal standards. She’s scared of being a statistic/victim. It was rough by the end, so be aware of that.

There is one scene with the trans love interest that can be construed as transphobic, but I feel it’s unintentional. Tristan, the trans guy talks about a non-consensual kiss he experienced prior to transitioning. The main character, who’s a cis girl, has an internal monologue talking about how boys are allowed to take whatever wanted from a relationship, while girls just have to take it.

So yes, she is misgendering Tristan here by just saying a blanket “all girls” have to deal with guys taking things from relationships, but Tristan was technically socialized into assuming his assigned gender is his gender. I think that discussion could’ve gone better with more elaboration.

I rated this book 3.25 stars. It was a good, relatively hard-hitting contemporary dealing with friendship as well as sexual assault. I just wanted to feel closer to the characters earlier than at the end of the climactic emotional arc.

When she was young, Kat and her summer friends would spend their long summer days roaming around Grand-Barachois. Then suddenly, everything changed. Now Kat is about to attend college and finds herself unable to forget the memories that continue to torment her. She decides to return to Grand Barachois for the last time and try to reinvent herself.
The reason why I wanted to read this book is because the story takes place in the province where I am from, New Brunswick, Canada. I was prepared for all the nostalgia and familiarity I just don’t tend to find when reading other books. I was also delighted that the author, Abigail de Niverville, is originally from Moncton, New Brunswick. I liked hearing the names of familiar places such as “Shediac,” “Cape Enragé,” and “Riverview” thrown around in the universe of this book. I could easily form images in my mind of these places. Unfortunately, someone who is not from New Brunswick or has never been to New Brunswick won’t be able to picture any of these locations. The narration tends to focus more on the main character, Kat, and her thoughts about the past rather than the landscape surrounding her.
Kat was a compelling character, and I could feel the weight of the emotional turmoil she experiences throughout the book. The subject matter is very heavy throughout the story, and I would not recommend this book to a younger teenage audience for the many mentions of sexual abuse. The looming depressing atmosphere of this book was lightened a bit by the romance between Kat and Tristan, and by Kat reconnecting with her summer friends. We Go Together, above all else, is a story of the first stages of healing after trauma, the pains of growing up, and accepting one’s own identity.
I would recommend this book to an older teenage audience and to those looking for a diverse cast of LGBTQ characters.

(3.5 stars)

There were a lot of things I really liked about this book. Firstly, the way it covered sexual assault was done really well. I thought the author did a great job at handling the issue of trauma and mental health, and the way that the main character comes to terms with and deals with her trauma was dealt with delicately. The LGBTQ+ representation in this book was also brilliant. I really liked how there were so many different LGBTQ+ characters (there are gay, bisexual, and trans characters) – it’s always weird when books have just one token LQBTQ+ character in a friendship group as that’s hardly a realistic representation of friendship groups in real life! I especially liked how the characters’ sexuality weren’t their only defining feature but was still relevant enough that it didn’t feel like token representation. In fact, I think that was one of the strongest elements of this book. Also, while it’s only a small thing, I really appreciated how the main character has eczema – as someone who suffered with quite bad eczema in my teens, it was so nice seeing the struggles of eczema flare-ups when you’re stressed, waking up to blood-stained bedsheets, and finding suitable clothes to cover your sores represented in a YA novel.

The reason I didn’t rate this higher is probably that I didn’t quite love the writing. I appreciated what the author was going for in terms of alluding to things that happened in the past but I felt like it could have perhaps been executed better, perhaps through the use of flashbacks. I think this would have worked especially well as one of the central themes of this book is nostalgia and the MC looking back at past summers, and at times it felt kind of heavy-handed the way she talked about past memories and other characters in a way that I didn’t feel that invested in them, which made the “big reveals” less impactful. I will say, however, that I really liked how one of the central themes of the book was rekindling old friendships and the nostalgia of summers in a different place with “summer friends” and looking back at worries that seem insignificant when you’re older.

It feels weird to call this a fun and easy read because of the very serious topics it does cover, and anyone who plans on reading this should note that it comes with a trigger warning for sexual assault, but I did manage to get through it pretty quickly and it was enjoyable. One of the central plotlines is Kat and her friends ticking things off a summer bucket list, and those scenes were quite fun to read. There’s also a small romance sub-plot that had one of the sweetest (and most respectful!) YA romances I’ve read [SPOILER] I absolutely love Tristan – I don’t usually care much for ships and YA romances but I was really rooting for Kat and Tristan to get together!

Overall, I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who’s looking for a summer YA contemporary novel (again, with the caveat to be mindful of the trigger warning), especially if you’re after something with good LGBTQ+ representation!

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[CW: off-page rape, abusive relationship, (possible) PTSD, off-page transphobia, off-page pregnancy, off-page incarceration]

This was heavy. The narrative tone is somber and reminiscent. With its main theme being Kat dealing with an abusive past relationship, the story is less about what is happening in the physical world but more about what goes on in Kat’s mind. That being said, the many events during Kat's time at Grand-Barachois are so sweet they made me slightly emotional again and again. In "We Go Together," we follow her journey of healing as she begins to acknowledge what she has gone through, relearns to trust others, and finds her own voice again.

When Kat decides to visit Grand-Barachois for a change of scene, she is still trapped with the memory of her abusive ex-boyfriend. Her great aunt Kay lives there, and so did her summer friends. It was with them that she had felt the most like herself when they were younger. Upon arrival, she meets Tristan, an acquaintance from youth orchestra, and the pair soon become friends. When some of her summer friends start showing up, they reconnect and Kat begins to find herself. And realizes her growing feelings for Tristan, too.

In the beginning, Kat is unable to fully see her ex as an abuser, and throughout most of the book, she continues to dance around the subject. She is somewhat in denial, self-blaming, and also in withdrawal. My heart hurts for her but I also love how she finds support in her friends: some from the Summer Six (Lucy, Annick, Sébastien, Mikey, Reagan) and Tristan. They are mostly sad queer teens but were drawn to each other well before they understood themselves. Then together, they are invincible.

I love that Kat, Lucy, and Tristan started the summer project of making the dreams of the Six's younger selves come true. The adventures the new friend group has are fun, light-hearted, and made me smile. They are all very respectful toward each other as well, and their relationships pure and beautiful.

The diverse cast is also wonderful. Siblings Annick and Sébastien are of First Nations heritage. Growing up, their father wants them to forget about their history because of his own experiences with racism. Now, Annick wants to honour their culture, starting by learning Mémère's beading. As for the main characters, Kat is bi and Tristan is trans. More of their friends identify as bi, gay, or simply implied as not straight.

My first impression of Tristan is that he is so incredibly precious. The relationship he and Kat develops over time is what healthy friendship and later on romance should be. He still has lingering internalized transphobia from his past but has overall grown into his true self. There is no doubt that he helps anchor Kat as she learns to cut out toxicity from her life. They make a cute couple, too.

Though the last closure Kat needed came a little too randomly, it didn’t bother me too much. I understand that it needs to—and also wanted it to—happen.

"We Go Together" is a wholesome summer story with an awesome cast of LGBTQ+ teens. I sniffled in public reading this. While this book is definitely not for every reader due to its theme and melancholy mood, it is a great YA that portrays both abusive and healthy romantic relationships along with supportive friendships. Many of the quotes are worth revisiting one day, too.