Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 14, 2020
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.
• Lesbian supporting character
• Death of loved one from cancer
• Bullying
• Parental abandonment
• Betrayal (A trusted person saying that the Heroine is to blame for her assault)
• Does have OM drama (kind of a love triangle situation)
• Does have OW (both the love interests have significant others… so the Heroine is kind of the OW in this big 😅)
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing each other away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Kindle
Rating: 3/5 stars
My opinion of Dear Emmie Blue is definitely against mainstream opinion–I found the book a very solid 3-star read, which is still good but definitely not reminiscent of the raving 5-star reviews. I just felt like there was too much left unexplored.
I liked Dear Emmie Blue and enjoyed Emmie’s bantering with her friends, Rosie and Fox. But the premise of the book is that Emmie has been in love with her best friend of 14 years, Lucas, for six years. And, on their shared 30th birthday, Lucas tells Emmie he has something important to tell her. Emmie assumes he’s finally going to declare his love for her, but in reality, Lucas has asked Emmie to be his best woman. And, she says yes.
Being the best woman makes Emmie part of the organizational force behind the wedding, which means for the first time since their fall-out (11 years), she is forced to do more than pass pleasantries with Lucas’s older brother, Eliot. What results is a tentative friendship that makes Emmie question everything; she’s loved Lucas for six years, but how can Lucas be her future if he’s getting married?
Unrequited Love
The most frustrating and, honestly, unbelievable part of Dear Emmie Blue was that Emmie has been secretly in love with Lucas for six years and actively feeding her unrequited love for him. The whole ‘friends to lovers’ trope is not one I enjoy, especially when one of the friends has been pining for years. But, the part about Emmie’s unrequited love that bugs me the most is that normally once those feelings are realized, you either decide not to risk your friendship and move on or talk through your feelings with your friend.
I know most ‘friends to lovers’ stories don’t necessarily mirror those options. But, a 24 to 30-year-old staying hung up on one person for six years while constantly being introduced to his girlfriends does not seem likely. She basically put her love-life on pause, waiting for him to read her mind.
Plus, only once he told Emmie how he felt was he able to start something with her!
Unconvincing Romance
I’ve rated Dear Emmie Blue as a 3-star read, which means I did enjoy the story and the romance. But, there were so many aspects to almost every relationship that were left unresolved.
First, I have no clue if Lucas was genuinely in love with his fiancée. There are comments made by both Emmie and Lucas’s brother, Eliot, about Lucas’s tendency to do things just because everyone else is. And, there’s no real resolution on whether Lucas decided to get married because he wanted to or because all of his mates were.
Also, how is it that Lucas gets back together with his ex-girlfriend, decides to propose to her (buys a ring, plans it out, etc.) without consulting his best friend? Your best friend is your sounding board, so the fact that Emmie was completely in the dark about Lucas’s rekindled relationship did not seem likely.
Finally, Emmie’s relationship with Eliot was cute. I was grinning reading their banter, but it was constantly dimmed by the fact that Eliot was in a serious relationship with his mean girlfriend, Ana, for half the book. The fact that Eliot was with someone who could be so rude to Emmie seriously rubbed me the wrong way (especially after Ana took the side of a man that got too forward with Emmie at a club).
And while this has nothing to do with Emmie, I found it seriously creepy that Ana was Eliot’s therapist. It came across as unprofessional (on Ana’s part) and a slight to the safe-space therapy is supposed to represent.
Instead of talking this through with Emmie, Eliot decides to take Ana for her word and basically just accuses Emmie and runs away to Canada to “think about things” for months! Like, what???
And, then–only once Emmie realizes she’s enough on her own and doesn’t need anyone else to make her happy–he comes back just in time for the meteor shower and surprises Emmie in her backyard. He apologies and says he finally has his head of out his ass but that they both obviously needed the time apart–and Emmie AGREES and doesn’t make him explain why he ran away to CANADA.
Like, what? He blocked Emmie on his phone, and social media and freaking ran across the WORLD instead of having a conversation with her!
The book ends with no resolution about his disappearing act, and there’s no actual time spent in the novel on his and Emmie’s relationship–just the ‘will they, won’t they’ tension!
Also, I think the author missed a huge opportunity to explore how Emmie would balance being best friends with her boyfriend’s brother. Emmie’s attempt at doing it in the book was to drop everything for Lucas, which resulted in letting down all of her friends, including Eliot. I honestly think it would be a steep learning curve for the three of them to navigate their respective relationships’ boundaries.
Evolution of Childhood Friendships
The story of how Emmie and Lucas met–she released a balloon into the air (in the UK) containing her email address and a secret, which Lucas found on a beach in France–was the definition of a meet-cute. Only in a book would they also share a birthday, but I loved how he was so supportive of Emmie.
Yet, there were many times throughout the book when I thought that Emmie saw Lucas as something on a pedestal rather than a person who can make mistakes. She couldn’t seem to put him into perspective–acknowledging his strengths and weakness. Which was all the more damaging. Lucas’s addition to her life at 16 probably saved her life, but it’s like she made an effort to keep him as her one and only friend. She would often cite Lucas as her only friend, yet she’s been close friends with Rosie and Fox for two years now. Even when she first met Lucas, it was never just Lucas and her; Eliot was also part of their bubble.
Journey of Self-Growth
What I did appreciate about Dear Emmie Blue was Emmie’s personal growth throughout the novel. It starts with little things like realizing it’s hopeless to expect her mother to be anyone but herself (someone who routinely–physically and emotionally–abandoned their child) and expanding to a confrontation of her fears and the realization that the greatest love of her life is herself… that she is responsible for her own happiness.
Emmie’s strength was her compassion and her desire to be a positive support for people. The arc of her dealing with her traumatic past and reconciling it with where she wants to go professionally was a huge bonus to the story.
Also, Emmie’s realization that her best friend, Lucas, wasn’t perfect and that he doesn’t need to be was awesome. Emmie says it herself–no matter what Lucas has done, she’ll always be there for him and root for him.
When it comes to sexual assault, when a survivor trusts you with their story, it is NOT yours to spread around like gossip. You are a vault. It is only the survivor’s decision as to who gets to know. And, especially for Emmie, who was bullied viciously in high school for reporting the teacher, she’s never had a safe space when it comes to telling her story.
I found it abhorrent that her *best friend* would tell a girl Emmie’s traumatic experience to explain why he wouldn’t date Emmie (and show that Emmie wasn’t competition for Lucas’s attentions *eye roll*).
And, before anyone says Lucas was “just a kid” (he even said in the book, he was a dumb boy): he was 19!
And, there was no resolution to this discovery. After some time apart, Emmie and Lucas’s relationship went on as normal. So, I would’ve liked a more fleshed out discussion after they had their space and how Lucas *finally* fessing up impacted their relationship.
In Conclusion
Dear Emmie Blue was an enjoyable book–I read it in a day! But, there were too many parts of the book left unaddressed, which created an over-all unsatisfactory ending. My dislike for an unrequited love that spans years definitely influenced my lower rating.
However, I found it refreshing that Emmie didn’t realize or think that she had feelings for Lucas until she was 24–a good eight years into their friendship. But, this one unique aspect to Dear Emmie Blue‘s take on an unrequited love novel didn’t make up for the inconsistent romantic relationships or the unresolved issues in those relationships.
Also, I would’ve liked to see Emmie in an actual romantic relationship given Dear Emmie Blue is a romance novel! She’s–ironically–pretty much the only character whose romantic relationship isn’t explored on-page. The main plot driver is the whole ‘will-they, or won’t they’ and the whole ‘which brother will it be.’ And, even once she chooses a brother, there’s no on-page development of their relationship, no reading about them as a couple, which is why I couldn’t believe the book ended where it did.
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