The title characters in Me & Emma are very nearly photographic opposites–8-year-old Carrie, the raven-haired narrator, is timid and introverted, while her little sister Emma is a tow-headed powerhouse with no sense of fear. The girls live in a terrible situation: they depend on an unstable mother that has never recovered from her husband’s murder, their stepfather beats them regularly, and they must forage on their own for food. Stop here and you have a story told many times before, as fiction and nonfiction in tales like Ellen Foster, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings–stories in which a young girl reveals the horrors of her childhood. Me & Emma differentiates itself with a spectacular finish, shocking the reader and turning the entire story on its head. Through several twists and turns the reader learns that things are not quite the way our narrator led us to believe and everything crescendos in a way that (like all good thrillers) immediately makes you want to go back and read the whole book again from the start.
Me & Emma is at its core a story about sisters yet so much more is packed into this little book. A casual remark from a book club friend about this book led me to pick it up at the library. No wait lists for this one as itβs an oldie from 2005. Devouring this sad, dark story in a few days was a surprise but it read fluidly as I was championing for Carrie and her sister Emma. The abuse was certainly a difficult subject matter, but this book offered so much more: courage, loyalty, family, sisters, hate and love. This book has an interesting twist that trumps all other books in this genre. There is a βsequelβ of sorts that I just got today and canβt wait to dig into tonight.
Review:Mercury by Amy Jo Burns is a story that shows the dysfunction of family in a pretty dysfunctional small town in Pennsylvania. When Marley comes to town with her single mother, she is the one that sets the crux of the book in motion. Her power over the Joseph boys is remarkable and her maturity at this young age was immense. She seemed to be omnipresent at times because she got into all of the Joseph families heads. The authorβs strength is in her multi-layered character building. I felt like a knew each character quite well. I found the discord between Elise and Marley to be incredibly well written. They were the adage of: so close and yet so far.Themes of mental illness, egotistical misogyny, sibling relationships, motherhood, and mystery were all woven through the storyline. Book clubs will get a good discussion out of this one.@burnsamyjo @celadonbooksπ: Do you have any sisters or brothers? #newbookreview#bookreview #bookstagram #bookreader #tbr #addtoTBR #bookreviewer #goodbookfairybookreview #goodbookfairy... See MoreSee Less
Miss your smile. Miss your face. Miss your calls. Miss your laughter. Miss your honesty. Miss you telling me what I needed to hear when I was too fragile to hear it. Miss you telling me the hard truths when I couldn't see straight. Miss not celebrating our birthdays together. I just plain miss you. Enjoy your lemon drop πΈ in Heaven. ... See MoreSee Less