This book is deep and heavy, honestly. This book started off happily enough and I thought I'd end up reading something light and fluffy and cute, but how wrong I was. That being said, I absolutely adored this book. I mean, I quickly understood where this book was going so the 'reveal' didn't surprise me at all (nor do I believe it was supposed to surprise the reader) and yet it felt like a punch in the gut to me. Most importantly though, it was very, very good.

This book reads very quickly, it just flows naturally and so I ended up reading 75% of it in one sitting. I kind of forgot time and space, I was so engrossed in the setting and these characters. The writing felt very natural, I don't know how to explain it in any other way than that. You really can't describe this book as a nice, fun summer read due to the topics it deal with but it was indeed a very quick read and I really, really liked it.

This book is mainly about survival, about guilt, about facing the truth and about remembering and also letting go. This book deals with rape and sexual abuse, with gaslighting, with guilt and shame. It shows how hard it can be to dare to live again. Honestly, there's nothing *new* about the topic at hand, I've seen this done multiple times in books before. That does not bother me one bit, however. It's done really well, the way it handled sexual assault and the feelings that follow felt very realistic and also tasteful. Kat is portrayed as being so much more than her trauma, it doesn't define her even though she struggles with it. I think this book balances her having a normal life with her dealing with her trauma really well.

This book was indeed very heavy but it wasn't just straight up heavy, it did contain so many elements of positivity too. I liked how this book balanced all the heaviness out with a fun, positive, awesome tale of revisiting old summer friends and childhood adventures, of having fun just for the sake of having fun.

What really touched me was how Kat was able to overcome, to work through her trauma. While I didn't feel their romance as such, I was so happy Kat found Tristan and dared to trust him. He seemed to be genuinely a good guy for her and most importantly, he seemed very understanding of her. I was very happy they ended up together.

Another thing I really appreciated was the amount of LGBT representation that was allowed to exist without making it the whole entire personality of all characters. I especially enjoyed the fact that Tristan was trans and he was just treated like any other guy, instead of having the essence of his character based around his transness. I too am a bi girl so I could really relate to that aspect of Kat's struggle because yes, the struggle IS real.

If I could change one thing about this book I think I'd make it a little bit longer; I would have liked seeing the summer adventure part of this story explored more because that was just so happy and positive and just awesome in general.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and I think if you're okay reading books with heavier themes, that you should check this book out.

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.

We Go Together opens with Kat, our seventeen year old protagonist who goes to Grand-Barachois to spend the summer in her beach house. Early on, we learn that Kat had a relatively recent break up and had her heart broken. However, the more Kat reveals the more I realized this relationship did not sound like a healthy one. She seemed to be dealing with trauma that was slowly revealed throughout the story.

The other characters in the story – Tristan, Annick, Seb, Reagan, Lucy, Kay – were all likable enough but I didn’t feel distinct personalities from any of them and just lumped them together in my head. They were all the ‘summer friends.’ I did appreciate all of the LGBT reps in the book. Kat is bisexual and Tristan, her love interest, is trans. The romance itself was lackluster, which I think was in part that I had a hard time connecting with the writing style.

I really appreciated the discussion of the meaning of consensual sex throughout the book. Consent means saying YES, not the absence of a no. The perspective of an offender being someone who is in a relationship with the victim was heartbreaking to read about but so, so important. Sexual assault can and often is a boyfriend, husband or someone else in a relationship. Just because you are in a relationship does not automatically make sex consensual! There are a lot of complex feelings Kat works through – how can she love someone who hurt her? Is she a victim? – these feelings were all very raw and difficult to read from an outside perspective. This is not a topic I have seen discussed in YA fiction before and was very glad to see it here.

Overall, this was a nice story. There were many aspects of the story I appreciated, but it felt slow at times. Much of the book was Kat’s internal dialogue and dealing with her past trauma, which was heartbreaking and realistic, but often did not help to move the story along. The writing fell a bit flat for me and as I mentioned above, I had a hard time finding an emotional connection to the characters despite the intense subject matter. There were some refreshing topics that I don’t normally see discussed in YA fiction and I definitely appreciate that.

CW: rape, abusive relationships

I received a copy of this book to review via Netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity.
This book was a sweet romance that had some darker aspects included such as sexual assault. Note that readers should check prior to reading. The inclusion of this topic lead to a book which expanded more on aspects on relationships than I had seen prior to this in a young adult novel. It included a diverse range of characters, I particularly liked Aunt Kay. The writing was good with a few typos e.g. Cloths for clothing.
I would have liked more exploration into the characters, particularly the MCs as I felt that there was an excess of characters which did not add a great deal to the book. It felt at times that the author was tying include as much variety into her novel as possible., but did not fully flesh out the characters sufficiently. The beginning of the novel was a bit slow but the pace picked up once the story became established.
On the whole, a good book.

With thanks to Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review.

3.5*

For me, the first 50% of this book was slow going, but I'm never one to leave a book unfinished. I'm glad I carried on reading because I really enjoyed the second half.

I liked the themes in this book and the sensitive handling of topics like sexual assault.

Kat spends a summer staying with her Aunt Kay, where she spent many childhood summers. She is soon reunited with childhood friends and neighbour, Tristan. They embark on a bucket list of things which they always said they had wanted to do as kids. Kat finds this a good distraction after a rocky few months.

Kat, 17, struggles to trust/form relationships because of her terrible past experience. Throughout this book, this is a constant niggling thought for Kat and influences almost everything she does. I really appreciated how well this was considered and written as it shows the frustration, anger, and constant doubt which could affect somebody after such a traumatic relationship.

I struggled personally with the characters in the book. Whilst there is a good LGBTQ representation, I just felt there were too many to be fully developed and I didn't get enough for me to be invested in them. I really would have liked to have got more from them to compliment Kats story.

Overall, I would give the book 3.5* and I would definitely read another book by Abigail de Niverville.

Kat starts off trying to run away from her past - by visiting Aunt Kay at the beach for the summer. She soon reunites with her childhood group of summer friends and neighbour Tristan - and they make a plan to complete a bucket list of all of the plans they had made but not finished as young teens.

This is about the teenage summers that go by so quickly you feel like you have imagined them. About rediscovering yourself after someone’s hurt you so that you begin to ‘Shine so bright you burn away the rest’. I would recommend this to students 16 and over as it’s absolutely fantastic that the authors wrote an entire book whereby the characters sexualities aren’t ‘the point’ of the book... the bucket list is - everything else is normalised which is exactly how it should be in 2020!

The book is a gorgeous summer read, but it’s difficult to read about the character confronting her past. The author does a brilliant job of ageing ‘Kitty’ to ‘Kat’ and developing the character in confidence and maturity over the Summer. Everyone can relate to things happening where you don’t respond to an event the way you wish you had, when you can only say everything you’d wanted to say after the fact and have recurring dreams about it. Everyone asks questions about what they could have done differently in life, making some of the books quotes very relatable: “I ask those questions all the time. It’s dangerous, once you start, you can’t stop.”

CW: Rape, sexual assault.

We Go Together follows a teen girl named Kat who is struggling with her previous relationship. In an attempt to better herself she spends her summer where she always did as a child.

I truly enjoyed how Abigail de Niverville discussed consent throughout the book. It was something that Kat continuously grappled with, and it showed the complexity of the topic.

Unfortunately, the character development of Kat felt oddly paced. For a majority of the book, she seemed static, and when she developed it felt immediate. I would have loved to see more small changes with her throughout.

There is a diverse LGBT+ cast of characters that people will hopefully be able to relate to. as a cishet person, I can't say whether the representation is good or not.

Overall I am giving this book three stars. I would have liked more fleshed out development, but altogether it was a quick read with a good message.

We Go Together is a book that tackles a lot of complicated subjects. At first it's a lot to bite off however the author manages to weave together the story so that the times where it feels like a lot it is tampered down quite a bit.

Our main character, Kat, is very introspective and dissects her past and how situations weaves through her current life. Queer representation is delivered in droves with this novel- a wonderful representation of a trans supporting character that was natural and not forced. Moving on is a big topic in this read, as is consent. This is a perfect read for anyone who is/has felt the growing pain of adolescence and is struggling to understand where your personal boundaries lie.

This is a novel with a mission and a strong underlying statement. While I tend to gravitate to novels with a levity to them this was still wonderfully written and a great overall message.

I couldn't really get into this book but I'm glad that I kept read. It was fairly well-written but think we could've used a little more context for a few things instead of people just getting thrown into the story.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this book was a DNF for me. I made it about 40% through before quitting. For reference, I'm queer and nonbinary. Potential triggers below for sexual assault, emotional abuse, transphobia.

This book had a lot of queer rep going on; the main character and several of her friends were bi, the next door neighbor is a trans man, and I did like that the rep is named on page, but both Kat and Tristan were uncomfortably nervous about stating their identities. Kat worries about coming out as bi until one of her other friends does, and Tristan asks Kat to come with him because they're visiting a friend he hasn't seen since he started to transition. It wasn't overdone, just put there on the page, but given my other frustrations with the book, it made me sigh a little, and not in a great way.

Kat is unendingly anxious about a relationship that has just ended; she is perseverating (and I'm choosing that word intentionally, as far as I got in the book she was never trying to DETERMINE in what way Aaron, her ex acted) on whether or not he was abusive, and specifically whether or not the sex they had was nonconsensual. She's just turning it over and over in her mind, how she never said no, she just didn't say yes, how he ruined her, and I go *so* sick of it. I truly do understand that some people are unclear about whether or not contact is consensual, and I'd love to read more books about characters trying to untangle whether or not they were raped, but I needed a more active internal conversation to be okay with this here. Kat gets several chances to open up about what's happened to her, and chooses not to, which made me feel like "I think I was raped" was going to be a big reveal and I absolutely could not handle that.

There is also much made of how Aaron didn't like to touch her in public. She thinks of this as proof that he didn't love her and didn't want to publicly demonstrate their relationship. With more information, I absolutely could have thought of this in that way, but the way its described, I found myself if Aaron might have been touch averse. I'm an autistic person who has problems with very specific types of touch, such as holding hands or casual physical contact. Having people take my hand or brush up against me is physically uncomfortable, sometimes for minutes and sometimes for hours. From my point of view, it was rapidly very clear that Aaron was sexually and emotionally abusive, so it wasn't a problem exactly, but I found myself wondering how the author would have treated it otherwise.

The part of the book that made me set it down and walk away however, related to Tristan explaining a time when he was kissed without his having consented to the kiss, and how it made him feel. Okay; trans men are certainly frequently victims of corrective rape, and touching on this element could have made sense. The kiss isn't framed in that way, however, Tristan just feels uncomfortable with the contact after it happened. This reads like inviting Kat to open up about what's happened to her (because everyone seems to already know that Aaron treated her this way, but no one is just asking), but instead, Kat thinks about how society trains boys to take what they want, and trains girls to just take it.

In that moment, based on the context (which, to be clear, was in an ARC and could change in the finished text), Kat is framing Tristan receiving unwanted sexual contact as something girls just have to put up with. This immediately shifted my perception of Kat as someone who was accepting of her trans friend, who she had known both before and after transition, into someone who still through of her trans guy friend as a girl in some ways. This wasn't a specifically triggering moment for me personally, but I was not interested in continuing to read the book after that moment.

There are societal and political reasons why it is beneficial to discuss sexual assault in a binary way, but it is important to be strongly nuanced and inclusive of the risk of sexual assault to trans people even as we talk about base assumptions like men are more likely to be rapists and women are more likely to be raped. I know a fair number of trans men and trans masc folk who find those binary conversations deeply triggering, and that one phrasing threw my enjoyment of the book (which had a cute concept and a cute group of friends) entirely out the window.

I did some looking around because the author has stated that this is an ownvoices book, but not what the book's ownvoices rep was for. After some looking around, I *think* the only rep is for bi characters, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I have complex feelings about this. I don't think that people should be required to out themselves in order to write books about marginalized characters, but I also think you need to be honest and clear about what rep in your books is ownvoices if you want to claim that label. People choose ownvoices books because they are looking for representation of their own marginalizations, and this felt like a kind of bait and switch.

So, this particular book is a DNF for me. I'd probably try another book by the same author, but if she is not trans, I would like to see that made clear in future conversations about books with trans characters.

We Go Together is a lovely read about facing one's past. The characters are well written and the LGBTQ representation feels extremely well done and necessary part of the story rather than like some other stories where it feels it's just added in to make the story more diverse and inclusive. Really not the case here.
A very enjoyable read.

We Go Together is a beautiful book about the past... it's about looking back and trying to understand what we did, what happened to us, and how it affects us going forward. The main character of his story is Kat. She's dealing with the weight of a break up with her boyfriend. In addition to that - as she spends the summer with old friends, she begins to question her relationship with her ex.

Consent is a big part of this novel. Abigail de Niverville does a remarkable job of expressing how confused, frustrated, and frightened Kat is by her sexual relationship with her ex. Looking back at her past relationship through the filter of a new friend with potential, she knows that what happened to her, happened without her consent and she battles to put that into perspective in her life.

There is wonderfully diverse representation in this novel. What I have enjoyed in the past about Abigail's writing is the way that she captures her bisexual characters. The author gives a balanced view of a character's thoughts and feelings... they don't immediately have a connection to a certain gender.

The trans supporting character was great. What I liked most was that it was handled wonderfully. Tristan is a great character in his own right, the fact that he is trans is just one other thing about him. (Note: I am a cisgender woman and can only speak to the representation as an ally.)

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

We Go Together was such a deeper story than I expected and I loved it for that. Following 17 year old Kat after getting out of a mentally and (possibly, she still isn't quite sure) physically/sexually abusive relationship and returning to the beaches she spent her childhood growing up on, this book examines self identity, friendship, love, and the strength it requires to move on and heal.

Kat is bisexual and the rest of the cast is also wonderfully diverse. I really really loved the equal weight We Go Together puts into Kat's feelings towards all genders and gender identities. I've read a lot of bi characters where you know from the get-go that the character is bound to end up with a certain gender because the feelings towards the other gender are never given much merit, and that definitely isn't the case here. She and her trauma both felt very real.

I'm cis so I obviously can't speak to how accurate the trans rep in this book is, but I really appreciated this book's handling of the romantic lead. We follow Kat so his story and identity aren't a focus of the novel, but the way he and his identity as a trans man were written felt both casual enough that it didn't feel like Niverville was going "Look! Diverse!" but was also mentioned whenever it would obviously come up in a conversation so it never felt like it was something she was shying away from. It felt like one of the most respectful ways a cis author (I'm assuming the author is cis but I am aware that just because an author doesn't openly discuss their queerdom online doesn't mean can't be queer) can write trans rep.

Nothing in this book is black and white. Criminals can be good, nice guys can be bad, and assault isn't always something you recognize. We Go Together is a deep, gorgeous story.

Their are two things I really appreciate about this book. Firstly, is the queer representation that is not just about coming out but about living and the joy of not having to be in the closet. Secondly, representation of looking back on your first relationship and dissecting the red flags and working out whether it was abusive. I feel like this is relevant to a lot of teenagers but I’ve never seen it done this light handily. TW - sexual assault. I keep wanting to describe this book as sweet in spite of the subject matter because of the way that it was written.