72 pages • 2 hours read
Nina LaCourWe Are Okay
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
CHAPTERS 1-6
Reading Check
1. Who is Marin’s college roommate?
2. What invitation does Mabel offer Marin?
3. Who is Birdie?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why is Marin staying in her college dorm over winter break?
2. What is Gramps like?
3. How is Marin connected to the surfers?
4. How is the pottery studio important to Marin?
Paired Resource
- Graham Foust’s brief poem offers insights into death.
- The poem connects to the theme of Grief and Loss.
- How have ghosts impacted Marin’s life?
“How your brain copes with grief, and why it takes time to heal”
- NPR interviews a psychologist, Mary-Frances O’Connor, about grief’s impact, its universality, and ways to help someone who is grieving.
- Theme connections include Grief and Loss and Healing and Belonging.
- How is Marin experiencing grief? What advice would Mary-Frances O’Connor offer Mabel as she tries to help?
CHAPTERS 7-12
Reading Check
1. What causes the power to go out?
2. Where do Marin and Mabel stay to survive the blackout in the cold?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What collage is Ana working on, and how does Marin help her?
2. In the flashback on the beach, how does the relationship between Mabel and Marin change?
3. What does Marin notice about Gramps that concerns her?
CHAPTERS 13-18
Reading Check
1. Where do Marin and Mabel identify as a midway point between their colleges where they can meet?
2. Where did Marin spend a lot of time after Mabel left for college?
3. Who wrote the letters from Birdie?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What leads to the title sentence of “We are okay” (Chapter 13)?
2. What does Mabel explain to Marin about the room she and her parents prepared for her in their home, and how does Marin feel about this revelation?
3. What reveals Gramps’s health declining?
Paired Resource
- Harvard Magazine examines the effects of loneliness, its prevalence in society, its increase during COVID-19 lockdowns, and some ideas for increasing connections.
- Theme connections include Loneliness and Healing and Belonging.
- How does Marin experience loneliness?
CHAPTERS 19-24
Reading Check
1. How did Gramps die?
2. On the night Gramps dies, instead of going out to Ana and Javier at the police station, what does Marin do?
3. When she and Mabel brush their teeth together, what does Marin realize about their reflections?
4. Who has saved things for Marin from her house?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Marin find when she finally goes into Gramps’s room and closet?
2. What is the place like where Marin stays for two weeks before college starts?
3. Why does Marin not return to California with Mabel?
Paired Resource
“Grief”
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem presents depths of grief.
- The poem connects to the theme of Grief and Loss.
- Which lines from the poem most connect to the grief Marin is walking through?
“15 Things To Do If You're Feeling Lonely”
- This resource from Mental Health Foundation includes statistics about loneliness and some steps that can help people feel less lonely.
- Theme connections include Loneliness and Healing and Belonging.
- Which of these tips has Marin tried, and how has each affected her?
CHAPTERS 25-30
Reading Check
1. When reflecting on her life with her grandfather, what fear does Marin articulate to herself?
2. Who arrives at Marin’s dorm?
3. What does Ana ask Marin to say yes to and what does Marin say?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What are some ways Hannah has helped Marin?
2. How is Marin feeling about not going to California?
3. What memory of her mother does Marin finally have, what triggers it, and what feelings does it bring?
Recommended Next Reads
Hold Still by Nina LaCour
- At 16, Caitlin experiences the loss of her best friend Ingrid by suicide. Finding Ingrid’s journal gives Caitlin new insights into her friend’s life and helps her begin to heal.
- Shared themes include Grief and Loss, Loneliness, and Healing and Belonging.
- Shared topics include friendship, death, school, mental illness, self-discovery, and hope.
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
- Camina and Yahaira are half-sisters living in different countries with no knowledge of each other until their father dies in a plane crash. As they process his sudden death, they find each other.
- Shared themes include Grief and Loss, Loneliness, and Healing and Belonging.
- Shared topics include family, friendship, death, relocating, and new beginnings.
- Clap When You Land on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
CHAPTERS 1-6
Reading Check
1. Hannah (Chapter 1)
2. To come live with her family (Chapter 4)
3. The person Gramps writes to (Chapter 5)
Short Answer
1. Marin does not feel like she has anywhere to go. She tells the school leaders she will stay at the college until she graduates. Marin is still in the throes of her intense grief and cannot see another option. (Chapter 1)
2. Gramps has taken care of Marin since her mother died, and he is fiercely private about his memories, responding angrily to the guidance counselor when she brings up the topic and coldly when Marin does. He writes to someone named Birdie. He bakes cake and sings, exhibiting joy, but he and Marin live separately in the same house. (Chapters 1-6)
3. Marin’s mom died in a surfing accident. Marin spends a lot of time at the beach. Sometimes she watches the surfers. They speak to her at times about her mom, trying to honor her. (Chapter 5)
4. Marin connected to the studio and bought yellow bowls there, some of the only possessions she has in her dorm room. She later takes Mabel there, and the two both enjoy shopping. Marin also asks the owner for a job, taking a step to get out of her room more and find a place where she feels joy. (Chapter 6)
CHAPTERS 7-12
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. Ana is creating a collage of the ocean at night. She realizes it is missing something and later adds parts of clothes Marin has cut up and left. She also leaves a thank you note. (Chapter 7)
2. Mabel and Marin begin kissing and spend the night on the beach. They awaken unable to fully look at each other, happy with the new relationship but also awkward. (Chapter 10)
3. Marin is unsure about how Gramps is acting about Birdie. Later, she notices something concerning about him with his friends at the poker game. He seems disturbed when his friend pours him a drink; she does not fully understand what is happening but feels worried. (Chapter 12)
CHAPTERS 13-18
Reading Check
Short Answer
1. While staying at the groundskeeper’s home during the snowstorm, Mabel and Marin begin to open up more. Marin shares about the hotel she stayed in before college began. They also talk about Gramps. They hold each other. Their friendship is still intact. (Chapter 13)
2. Mabel explains they prepared her brother’s old room, not the guest room, because they want her to feel a part of the family, not as a guest. Marin feels some joy in this revelation. (Chapter 14)
3. Marin finds bloody handkerchiefs hidden in socks, recognizing some health concerns with her grandfather. She also notices he has lost weight and his eyes are yellow. He emphasizes for her to be frugal because she will need to save money, suggesting she will not have him to lean on. (Chapter 15)
CHAPTERS 19-24
Reading Check
1. He drowned. (Chapters 19-20)
2. Leaves in a taxi through the back of the station alone (Chapter 20)
3. They look tired and sad but also young. (Chapter 23)
4. Gramps’s poker friends (Chapter 24)
Short Answer
1. Gramps has a lot of Marin’s mom’s belongings. They fill his closet. He has kept them labeled carefully but never shown them to her. Also, the letters from Birdie are in Gramps’s handwriting, revealing he wrote them. (Chapters 19-20)
2. Marin stays in a dirty hotel, “worse than unclean” (181), with a woman in a nearby room howling. She eats in the diner but otherwise is mostly alone. (Chapter 22)
3. Marin says she will go back to the town someday but cannot do so now. The pain from losing both her mother and grandfather and all of the revelations is too much for her. (Chapters 23-24)
CHAPTERS 25-30
Reading Check
1. “I am afraid he never loved me.” (Chapter 27)
2. Mabel returns with her parents, Ana and Javier. (Chapter 29)
3. She asks Marin to be a part of their family and let her be her mom, and Marin says yes. (Chapter 30)
Short Answer
1. Hannah accepts Marin with compassion right from the start. She also gives her physical things like sheets that she needs. Hannah invites her to eat with her and her other friends, providing social connections. She checks in on her over break, making sure Marin does not stay completely isolated. Hannah offers unconditional friendship as Marin walks through her grief. (Chapters 25-26)
2. Marin wishes she could have gone with Mabel. She misses Mabel and feels lonely, putting her phone right near her to hear and respond immediately when Mabel texts. (Chapters 28-29)
3. Marin remembers her mom holding her when she was very young, her mom’s hair, and the safety of that moment. She is able to remember as Ana hugs her and welcomes her into her family. Marin finds joy and desperately wants to keep remembering. (Chapter 30)
