Absolutely stunning. This haunting tale is about loss and grief, but it is also about hope and family.

I loved the story. It was quick, detailed, and deep in so many ways. I also fell in love with almost every character. Their connection to one another was so powerful it brought me to tears.

I highly recommend this beautiful book to any YA reader.

Watch Over Me is a beautiful, atmospheric, and heartbreaking story of trauma, grief, and discovery of self told through through the eyes of a girl who can see ghosts. I enjoyed this book tremendously and look forward to sharing it on my Instagram. Thank you for providing me with the eARC.

“We have to face the things that scare us. It might be the only way to stop being afraid.”

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour is beautifully atmospheric and a hauntingly sad story about Mila, an 18-year-old who has aged out of the foster care system and is given the opportunity to go live and work on an isolated farm. Mila is hired to teach the younger students and forms a connection with Lee, a boy who has a sad and tragic past, much like her own. A bond is formed and Mila feels an intense protectiveness over Lee. Mila soon fits in with her peers and is finally able to make meaningful friendships but when her past begins to sneak up on her, Mila must learn to cope with it.

Mila is a fascinating character and her development over the course of the book is so well-done. She is mysterious and cautious, as all girls who harbor deep secrets are, but as I got glimpses in to her abusive past and how it formed her, my heart broke a little with each revelation. I could understand her guilt, her protective mechanisms and her caution to become too close to anyone. Surrounded by ghosts, real and figurative, in a lovely setting in the California mountains, Mila, flawed, lonely but not alone anymore, will learn to trust again.

Wonderful YA novel that is both inspiring and poetic, a page turner that will surely break your heart but it just may put it back together again, too.

So after reading the book, I'm not so sure about the cover... but putting that aside. I really enjoyed this one and read it in a single sitting. What I love about LaCour's writing is that she manages to be simultaneously poetic and to-the-point. Her novels are shorter than many others crowding the YA shelf, but they pack dramatic and emotional punches. This particular text is a ghost story, though not of the sort you might imagine at first. It's worth a read both for ghost lovers and non-ghost lovers alike. At it's core is a yearning to be accepted and loved for who we are. This book is about both the literal ghosts, but also those figurative ghosts of memories that seem to haunt us forever.

Mila has been in foster care since a fire that killed her mother's boyfriend left her homeless at age 11. Now, at 18, she thinks she has finally found a home.

She is invited to live and work on a farm in a remote area of Northern California. The couple who owns the farm care for as many foster children as they can in an effort to provide them with a good education and a loving home. Mila will teach some of the younger children, sell flowers at the farmer's market, and be of general help. In exchange she will be provided with food, housing, friendship, and love.

What no one warned her about was the ghosts.

**SPOILERS**

One thing I particularly loved about this is that there's a period in the middle where I thought something sinister was going to happen. The ghosts were going to catch up with everyone and someone was going to die, etc. The usual horror story stuff. And then...instead it was magical. Instead of ending in running for her life, Mila was able to face her fears and gain what she needed - a loving home despite (or perhaps because of) the difficulties she had faced and the choices she had to make as a child.

Watch Over Me from Nina LaCour read like a gauzy veiled dream. Telling the story of Mina, a teenage girl living in foster care, who gets invited to live on a farm on the California coast. This farm is run by Julia and Terry, a couple who have, over the years, fostered over forty children at the ocean side property. This is a fresh start for Mina, who is haunted by her past. While Terry and Julia know some of the made-public details about what happened during Mina's childhood, they don't know the real truth and Mina is terrified that if they knew, they wouldn't want her.

As a new resident on the farm, she is to become teacher to the only student, Lee, a boy who seems to be just as haunted by his past as she is. The two form an immediate bond and she vows to be there to protect this young boy. But, the farm is haunted; haunted by ghosts that roam free in the night. They are not scary, but just a normal part of this estate. She begins to form friendships with her peers on the farm and just when it seems that a happy and normal life here could be a real possibility, things from her past start to encroach on her, filling her mind and strangely, manifesting in her daily life.

In this book, Mina must learn how to reconcile her past in order to exist in the here and now. Will she be able to live a happy life on the farm with these great new people who are becoming her new family or will her past come back to burn everything down?

This was a wonderfully quiet and atmospheric story that lulled me into a happy calm while reading it. The writing of Nina LaCour is strange and beautiful and completely pulled me under it's surface, leaving me floating along the waves of the past and present.

**thank you penguin teen for the earc copy via netgalley

#penguinteenpartner

Twigger warning- ghosts, abuse, grief, nightmares


Well this book was super weird but in the most intriguing way possible. I couldn’t put it down because i was so caught up in what would happen next. Nina LaCour truly knows how to write about a character whose reaching so hard for love and acceptance and i think she does a great job at that. I was hoping for more of a romance with the two FF characters but i didn’t get much of it at all. But i know this book wasn’t intended for that to be the focus of the story in that aspect i did appreciate it. I enjoyed the writing style and how it went back to her past and felt a lot of sympathy for her which made the story deeply gripping.

This book releases September 15, 2020 and i highly recommend if you’re looking for a story that will escape you to a different perspective and keep your imagination to explore.

Beautiful...I love how LaCour says so much with her prose. Somehow she is able to convey emotions without having to spell it out. I loved this as much as We Are Okay. It sounds cliche, but her novels are haunting.

This is a beautiful book about grief and loss and I love the way Nina tells this story. Kids in the foster care system not only have to deal with the loss of their past, but the acceptance that it is something they will never be able to return to. We see that loss in Mila as she moves to a remote farm up the California coast after graduating high school. She takes up a job as a teacher for other foster kids and comes to find that the farm is haunted.

Mila struggles with feelings of grief, shame, and whether she is truly a good person. Her mother was a teen mom who emotionally abandoned her after getting into a new relationship with a psychologically abusive man. Seeing Mila pulled from school, not given basic necessities, and dealing with her mother's obsession with Blake is not easy to read through. But in contrast to her love and care for Lee, her student, and her other friends, it makes me happy to see that Blake didn't hurt her too badly. Although, he did hurt her.

Overall, this book was so beautifully written as Mila works through the ghosts of her past and her grief. The loss of her family and her life before Blake is heartbreaking. But the new family she gains shows that with loss comes new beginnings too. Honestly, it really helped me go over some of my own grief and find acceptance within myself. I really enjoyed this book and the lessons Mila learns. I can't wait to check out Nina's other books!

Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour tells the story of Mila. At 18, she is a high school graduate and has aged out of the foster care system. Her prospects for the future are uncertain, but luckily, she’s been offered housing and a job as a tutor at an isolated farm on the coast of Northern California. The job offer comes with some unusual conditions: there is no WiFi, no cell signal, and the farm is haunted. Mila has few options and is soon working at the farm, a second- chance home for troubled foster children. It’s an unusual place and Mila will soon be forced to deal with some of the darkest parts of herself. She will not be able to face the future without tackling the tragedies in her past.

Mila is an unforgettable heroine. She is strong, resilient, and loving. At the same time, she is very human and insecure. Nina LaCour has given most of her characters this same multi-faceted treatment. Lee, a young boy that Mila tutors, is especially engaging. The farm’s ghosts are important characters in their own standing. In my opinion, the novel is weakest when it is trying to integrate paranormal elements with everyday life. Watch Over Me seems to work best as a realistic novel. Regardless of your feelings about these different story elements, this one is a page-turner and will appeal to reluctant readers.

One word of warning to librarians: if you have any patrons who are abuse victims, this book may trigger emotional distress.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for sending me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a hauntingly beautiful story and I devoured it in a single day!

I had never read anything by this author before and I thoroughly enjoyed this. The author has such beautiful prose and creates such a haunting atmosphere, it makes it a joy to read. I love the setting of this book being in the secluded California mountains. Our main character is very flawed (which I love since no human is perfect) and I love how she works through her trauma and past throughout the course of this book.

I would definitely recommend this to those who are looking for a slow burn, slightly spooky/magical story that has great writing and a character who you root for throughout the book. It was so good and I am eager to read more by this author in the future!

Watch Over Me feels almost more like a painting than a book. It's about the picture Nina LaCour paints for you - the grey, overcast sadness of Mila, the bright lights of the spirits and the warm glow of the farm. You see Lee's glasses, the golden chains and everything in vivid imagery. LaCour's focus on these nuances and her unique way of telling a story makes the book feels wholly focused on emotion. It is not plot and action driving the story (though it is definitely present), it is emotion. it is feeling of loneliness, of a longing to belong that pull the reader along. It's a quiet, powerful book - or work of art, if you will - that makes you think about family and everyone's internal struggles.

The beautiful haunting story of a young woman who makes a new family and home as she finds a way to move beyond her troubled childhood.
#NetGalley

I was unsure where this book was going to go, I admit. It was a nice story though. I like the relationship between Mila and Lee, how protective she is of him. The ghost aspect was interesting.

If a Munch painting would speak, maybe this is what it would say. I'm struggling to comprehend (?) appreciate (?) absorb (?) what I read. Bizarre, strange, confusing, yet profound, deep, thought provoking, tugging at all aspects of emotions, and I couldn't put it down. Luckily it was a short book. It's either the work of pure genius or pure madness. One thing for sure, it made me think about it. Sometimes it’s hard to follow what appear to be flashback sequences and when the flashbacks end. My brains want to give this a 4 but my heart says it’s a 5. I’m following my heart on this one. I thought about re-reading a few sections to see if I missed something but then I thought better of it and just accept the story for what it was (no further explanations or clarifications necessary).

Thank you to Dutton Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for providing me with an arc for review!

Watch Over Me is such a delicately soft book that talks a lot about trauma, grief, and finding your own found family. LaCour had a unique take on ghosts and what other significance they could have. It's just so tender and haunting in a way I was not expecting.

This is a hauntingly beautiful story. It's about loneliness but even more so it is about found families and healing. LaCour's prose is, unsurprisingly, lyrical without being flowery. Every scene is intentional and none were too lengthy. This book shows the difference between loving someone and wanting to own someone, and it does it so wonderfully. There were some characters I wished we could have learned more about and some plot points I would have liked more details about; that being said, this is very much Mila's story and changes such as these may very well have ended up harming the story rather than helping it.

This book is grief, pain, heartache, loneliness, and most of all healing all wrapped up in a beautiful package. Another reader said that no one does loneliness like Nina La Cour, and I couldn’t agree more. This book has so many wounds, you could just feel it bleed from every page. There was also this sense of mystery where the reader is trying to put all the pieces together. I will say, I was not disappointed. The last chapter was WONDERFUL. The writing style was everything. I can’t wait to recommend this to everyone at our library.

ALSO...I loved Mila's relationship with her social worker. It made me want to become a social worker so I could be that one friend in these kids lives that they could consistently count on. It was PERFECT.

*Thank you to the folks at NetGalley for a digital ARC*

Nin LaCour is a fabulous author, whose books take an unexpected turn. This one is no different - love this setting, I was a little on edge reading it and I think it will be good for my students who are looking for something that is a bit different than a traditional storyline.

Watch Over Me is a haunting book full of grief and overcoming that trauma and learning to love others and be loved back. Nina Lacour knows how to write a very atmospheric book, that had you so immersed with the characters it was like you were experiencing everything too. I really loved how this book was written with the sad and eerie flashbacks and how real the main character seemed. Mila had raw emotion and was filled with such utter loneliness that was written so beautifully. Mila just wants to overcome her grief and be wanted and loved. Seeing her growth was such a heart wrenching thing and I really loved this book.

While I enjoyed this book and loved the memory flashbacks and the point of this story, I didn’t end this book feeling any type of way. I really loved reading it and it was a powerful story, but it didn’t linger with me and I don’t feel the need to think about it. Other than that, I devoured this book and absolutely loved the magical writing style, descriptions, and characters.

This is a moving story about finding strength in your chosen family and facing the demons of your past so you can move on. Mila's journey from foster child to finding a sense of belonging in the world drew me in and had me cheering for her. I also appreciated the presence of a character who uses they/them pronouns and is completely accepted by those around them.