Emily in Love

Rating:
Summary: It Can't be a Cruel World
Review: A Review by Allison

"Why can't I be like other girls?" Emily would often wonder. Emily is a special girl who has trouble doing every day tasks. She is the target of many harsh remarks at her school and just wants people to know that she has feelings like everyone else. When she falls in love with a guy named Hunt, she tries to prove to her parents that she is grown-up enough to wear makeup and more stylish clothes. She and her best friend, Molly, even decide to have a party. Things go horribly wrong- Hunt kisses another girl and Emily gets kissed by her friend, Donny. Where do things go from here?

I thought this book was great in all aspects. The characters that were used were well-developed and the visual descriptions and settings fit together wonderfully. This was a fast read- not because it was a short book but because it was interesting and didn't have useless bits of information. It wasn't a particular difficult book to read but it was interesting and had a good story line. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that the ending seemed too abrupt. The language was easy to understand and descriptive. The story didn't seem like it was TOO happy or TOO sad, it was perfect.

I would recommend reading this book to anyone. It may be more for younger readers but something everyone should read.

Rating:
Summary: Struggles of a young girl
Review: A review by Amy

This book is about a developmentally delayed girl named Emily. She is starting a new high school and is desperately trying to fit in. Throughout this book, Emily faces many pressures to act a certain way, dress a certain way, and do certain things. For example, her best friend tells her that her clothes are too babyish and that she can't call her mother, mommy because she'd be "uncool". Emily tries very hard to do everything everyone tells her that she needs to do to be cool. But in the end, she lets her true self, shine through and finds new friends that accept her for who she really is.

Throughout this book Emily listens to her best friend and doesn't seem to have her own mind or a sense of herself. I felt like walking in on this book and being one of the characters to give Emily confidence in herself. Also, to teach her to be an individual and to do what she wanted, wear what she wanted, and hang out with whoever she wanted to.

Emily joins a new "regular" high school where there are "regular" kids and she feels a lot of pressure to grow up. For example, she feels like she's not pretty enough and needs to wear makeup. Something that was sort of a theme throughout this whole book was something that Emily read in a magazine. She read this article because she was trying to figure out what guys wanted in girls. She desperately wanted a boyfriend and the article she read was a statement that a boy made for the magazine. It read: ' I like girls who are sincere and honest. If they don't like me for who I am, then they're not worth being with'.

I thought that was a very good statement for the boy to make, but Emily took it the wrong way. She looked past what, in my eyes, was a very obvious point. That point was that guys should like her for who SHE is and THEY should be sincere and honest. Nope, that's not what Emily saw. She was too obsessed with trying and acting like she was sincere and honest. Key word, ACTING.

Another review that I read said that this book changed her life. That is a truly great thing that you can take from this book, but in my case, my life wasn't changed. Maybe that's because I've read many books such as this and this book sort of reaches out to a younger group than mine. Well, that's my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Blind with the wrong love
Review: A review by Erika

Emily is now a teenager and is able to go to a normal high school. She has never gone to a normal school because she had a disability and had to go to a special school. Emily is now going to experience the life she has always wanted, that's if her parents will let her. In this story Emily has to try to live the life of a teen without the help from her parents. She will also realize who her true friends are.

I liked this story because of the little romance that goes on in it. The author doesn't put it out there until the end but I liked it that way. In the story I like the way Donny becomes her true friend. The sad part is she had to find out the hard way. The only thing I didn't like was the characters Amanda and Molly. Amanda plays the bad guy in this story. She was really mean to Emily. She called her bad names all the time. For example, Emily held a boy/girl party, and Amanda called it a retard party and left. The reason I didn't like Molly was because she was supposedly her best friend but she treated her like she was some hopeless little girl who didn't know how to dress or act around boys. Molly would tell her things that she didn't need to know or she didn't need help with. The character I like was Donny. He noticed every thing she did. Like when she changed her clothes and started to ware makeup, he said she looked pretty. When it comes to the part of her meeting Hunt I thought it was cute. I thought it was cute because she thought he was the cutest thing in the world, but when she gets a job at the Farm Store. She doesn't want him to know she works there because there are other special kids there.

I would recommend this book because of how cute the story line is. The reason I like this book so much is that I like Emily's character. I liked how she looked at things. I would recommend this book to some one between the ages of 11-14. It was a simple book. It was easy to read.

Rating:
Summary: It Can't be a Cruel World
Review: At first, I was reluctant to get this book, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I like to read books with characters I can identify with. When I found it that it was about a mentally disbaled teenager, I almost didn't read it because I knew I would feel like an outsider when reading this book. Boy was I wrong. I realized that even though Emily, the fourteen year old main character, was different from normal teens such as myself, she still faces the same little everyday problems that I do, such as arguing with her parents about what she is and is not allowed to wear. She also faces bigger problems which I also relate to, such as trying desperatly to appear "cool." Although it is different for her, I feel like I understand what she is going through. Every teen is similar to her in one way or another. It also made me realize that just because people are different, they shouldn't have to worry about people "accepting" them. Emily was so worried about what others would think of her because she was different, and that sort of is a discrace to our society. We shouldn't have to live in a place where people are so worried and scared of others because they are "different." It isn't fair. If all the people who are cruel to others could just be in Emily's shoes for a day, I think they would change. And that's exactly what this book does, it puts you in Emily's shoes. This book was such an inspiration to me, that I decided to volunteer at a home for mentally challenged adults, where some friends and I went and planted flowers. The people there were so nice to us and they really appreciated what we were doing. I definetly will volunteer more. I urge everyone to read this book, no matter what age or sex, though teens will undestand and relate to it more. Judging by the title boys may be turned off by the book, but I think they will equally enjoy it. Read this book, it is amazing and has changed my life.