Millennials have lived through more than our fair share of historical moments. Lauryn Chamberlian’s newest novel, Who We Are Now [Buy Bookshop LibroFM Amazon] follows a group of friends as they navigate some of those changes and shows how friendships and little decisions can change our lives.
The novel opens with a prologue, where we learn one member of the group doesn’t survive the story, then we cut back to 2006. It’s the night before Rachel, Clarissa, Dev, and Nate graduate from Northwestern University and they are talking about all the possibilities and plans ahead of them. Rachel hooks up with Dev but they keep it a secret. Everyone but Clarissa is moving to New York. They are just so excited about life, not knowing what’s ahead for them.
This book has a unique structure in which each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective and follows them for a year. The other characters make appearances in chapters that aren’t their own because they are friends and their lives intersect repeatedly, but we aren’t seeing everything that’s happening to them. It definitely helps keep the pacing moving along, since this story spans nealy 15 years.
History is kind of a character in and of itself in this novel. Lauryn anchors the story in the reality of things we live through between 2006 and 2019. However, she doesn’t make it too overwhelming, which I appreciate. The history informs some of their decisions so it can feel more authentic. For example, it wouldn’t make any sense to have a character in finance in 2008 without seeing how the financial collapse and recession impacted them.
My biggest issue with this novel is that it feels aimless. Without the prologue telling us that someone was dead (which, honestly, I forgot about many times), it would feel like there was no point. I guess the point is friendship, but I wanted more things to happen. That’s just me though.
Literary HypeWoman 