Dear Emmie Blue

Oh .. my .. word. Dear Emmie Blue, I love you. 

You know how some books have great bookish buzz around them but end up being a mere fizzle? This is not that book. This coming-into-herself story is charming, emotional and, at times, heart wrenching for anyone who has every felt lonely and disconnected.

From the blurb, you may assume this is a romance, but it's so much more than that (the romance actually stays in the periphery most of the time). This is a story about friendship, self-discovery and family and Louis includes a few topics (neglect, loneliness, anxiety, redefining the idea of family ..) which add an unexpected, but welcomed depth to the story.

The strength of this story is in its characters. Particularly Emmie who is someone readers will cheer for and empathize with. She's looking for her people. She wants to be loved. Seen. Valued. And through some mishaps and re-evaluations, she learns that she's not as alone as she thought, and that family isn't restricted to who we're born to. It's the people who build us up, care for us and value us that make them family. Totally delicious mushy feels, this book is.

The story goes along at a good pace and even though I could see the ending a mile away, I still found the story compelling and I connect with Emmie on a few levels. And there were some Kleenex-worthy moments, for sure. Emmie's story is supported by a cast of well-developed secondary characters who evolve with Emmie and the emotional bits are balanced with delightful sprinklings of humour (particularly by Emmie's friend Rosie Kalwar whose quips had me giggling out loud).

Dear Emmie Blue is a sweet, poignant and utterly captivating story that will put you through alllll the feels and give you a character you can root for. The buzz on this book is warranted. Highly recommended.

My Rating: 5 stars

Author: Lia Louis

Genre: Romance, Contemporary Fiction

Type and Source: Hardcover from public library

Publisher: Atria

First Published: July 14, 2020

Opening Lines: I was ready; so ready for him to ask me. 

So ready, I was practically beaming, and I imagine 

so red in the cheeks, I probably looked ruddy, like streetwise children 

do in Charles Dickens novels - a tomato with a beating heart.

Book Description from GoodReads: In this charming and poignant novel, teenager Emmie Blue releases a balloon with her email address and a big secret into the sky, only to fall head-over-heels for the boy who finds it; now, fourteen years later, the one thing Emmie has been counting on is gone for good, and everything she planned is up in the air.

At sixteen, Emmie Blue stood in the fields of her school and released a red balloon into the sky. Attached was her name, her email address…and a secret she desperately wanted to be free of. Weeks later, on a beach in France, Lucas Moreau discovered the balloon and immediately emailed the attached addressed, sparking an intense friendship between the two teens.

Now, fourteen years later, Emmie is hiding the fact that she’s desperately in love with Lucas. She has pinned all her hopes on him and waits patiently for him to finally admit that she’s the one for him. So dedicated to her love for Lucas, Emmie has all but neglected her life outside of this relationship—she’s given up the search for her absentee father, no longer tries to build bridges with her distant mother, and lives as a lodger to an old lady she barely knows after being laid off from her job. And when Lucas tells Emmie he has a big question to ask her, she’s convinced this is the moment he’ll reveal his feelings for her. But nothing in life ever quite goes as planned, does it?

Emmie Blue is about to learn everything she thinks she knows about life (and love) is just that: what she thinks she knows. Is there such thing as meant to be? Or is it true when they say that life is what happens when you are busy making other plans? A story filled with heart and humor, Dear Emmie Blue is perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Evvie Drake Starts Over.