Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis

Synopsis (via 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.

"In nine months, my best friend of fourteen years, the man I am in love with, is getting married to a woman he loves. A woman who isn’t me. And I am to stand right there, at the altar, beside him, as his best woman."

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Any quotes I use are from an unpublished copy and may not reflect the finished product.

Dear Emmie Blue was lovely! I really enjoyed the characters and the setting (yes, they all had accents in my head) and thought the author did a wonderful job bringing them to life. While Emmie frustrated me at times, I could sympathize with her and what she was going through.

I liked the whimsical way Emmie and Lucas meet as teenagers! Can you imagine attaching a note to a balloon and having someone an ocean away discover it? It was like a modern day message in a bottle, with Emmie feeling emotionally adrift and distressed. The resulting friendship was something Lucas and Emmie both needed, since they were feeling very alone and isolated in their respective worlds. It was fun seeing how they communicated over the years, and I was so happy that his family embraced her and treated her like one of their own. Found families for the win!

Emmie's mother was awful. She's the main reason Emmie felt so lonely and unmoored in the world. Something terrible happens to Emmie - - something that totally wrecks her and the life she's built - - and her mother says something like, "other people have it worse." What horrible nonsense! A mother should be there for her child, especially when that child has been through something traumatic. I was LIVID. Unfortunately, my intense feelings of dislike towards her mother only increased as the story progressed. She was a selfish, inconsiderate, heartless and vindictive woman.

Despite growing up feeling unloved and uncared for, Emmie finds some really solid friends after college. She's had Lucas for years at this point, but it's not until Rosie, Fox, Louise and Eliot, that she really finds a group of people that truly care about her. Rosie was hilarious and I would love to be her friend, Fox had a dry sense of humor that never failed to make me smile, Louise was a wonderful women that I'm happy Emmie had a chance to get to know while renting a room in her home, and then there's Eliot. I adored him from the start, but it took ages for him to really grow on me as a potential love interest for Emmie. I had reservations because she had them, and rightfully so. It was amazing how the author developed their relationship over time - - slow, slightly forbidden, and definitely worth the wait.

There is a lot going on in Dear Emmie Blue, but the story never felt overwhelming. Emmie is dealing with her mother (horrible woman), an absent father, sexual abuse (that keeps her from pursuing jobs she'd like and causing panic when memories resurface), unrequited love, planning a wedding as best woman, a job that makes her happy but doesn't pay enough - - it was exhausting. I don't know how she held it together for long, and can totally understand why she cried a lot throughout this book. Seriously, she was sobbing on someone's shoulder or alone in her bed every other chapter. The girl was dealing with a lot of emotional stuff.

I thought the author realistically portrayed the inner turmoil Emmie was feeling, and I only wish her friends hadn't coddled her quite so much. They were all afraid of shattering the carefully crafted life Emmie had created (since it had happened before), and no one was willing to just tell her what she needed to hear (except Louise). I think if people (the ones that truly cared about her) had been more honest from the start, it would have saved her a lot of heartache. Regardless, everything felt authentic and entirely plausible.

The ending really warmed my heart, and made Emmie's journey worth it. Her life still isn't perfect, but it's definitely better than it was. She's learning to be her own person without someone else's influence, and I think she realized she'd relied too much on Lucas until he was no longer an option. She would drop everything whenever he needed her, and it wasn't unusual for him to flake when their roles were reversed. He was a really good friend to Emmie, but I do think he took advantage of her sometimes. But back to the ending - - YES. It was perfect. A little late... but perfect. (★★★★⋆)