The Kari AnnAlysis

Emily has wanted to live in New York her whole life. The hustle and bustle of city, the glitz and glam, and of course the big editing jobs. But they’ve not really been attainable considering Emily lives in Jenks, California. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either, but apparently it’s about the size of my hometown, bite size.

Emily doesn’t get to follow her dream to New York in college, the money just isn’t there, but she bides her time and finally gets the opportunity as an assistant to a neurotic editor, thanks to her once rich and powerful, now food shelter organizer uncle.

As always when you move to a new, big place, Emily feels lonely and out of the loop. But things quickly change when she makes some girlfriends at work and finds the only other Christian, it seems, in her workplace.

But things don’t stay on cloud nine forever. This new hunk of burning may not have the same ideals as Emily does when it comes to a relationship, her roommate is not as friendly as she had hoped, and there’s a new book being pitched at work that goes completely against everything she believes. And now, she’s not so sure New York was really the right place for her.

There is a patch of blue in the cloudy sky though, in the form of her 1st grade boyfriend, whom she actually never broke up with. Jacbo becomes Emily’s go-to and they spark an email relationship that may end up igniting a major fire.

Let me preface this review with if you give me a book that is about books, I’m almost in love already. I really loved this book for a number of reasons. Maybe not all of us, but most of us from a small town, at one time or another, have the dream of ditching the small town and heading to the big city, most with the Big Apple in mind. That may never become a reality, but living through someone else’s that may just do the trick. And when they snatch an editing job, even if it is as an assistant, I am frothing at the mouth. I love my job as a journalist, but I think reading and editing as a career, wow, how can you beat it?

I like that Emily really learns about herself through this move to New York. She has always been a Christian but kind of hides that when she gets to the big city. She goes out a little more, drinks a little more and tells people her “secret” a little less. I am a Christian and not afraid to admit it, but I’m not really a fan of books with major religious plots. This is nothing that I haven’t blogged about before, and I will probably turn down the book if I know beforehand religion is a major role, but if it’s woven through, it doesn’t really bother me. In this book, I think it worked very well, just because it showed the Emily had something she felt strongly about and it ended up being a big game changer in her life. The passion for religion and her beliefs at the end of the book is one that made me want to be passionate about something. It really worked in this story.

The characters, other than Emily’s roomate, were all pretty likeable in this book. The thing I liked most about Emily though was the girl she became in emails. When we first meet her, she’s a little timid, small mouse in a big city. As the story goes along, she lightens up a bit. But when she emails Jacob, she just comes to life. I think a lot of people are this way. I know I can say a lot more to people through email than I can in person. My problem comes with my emotions. Every time I need to confront someone in person, I cry. Through email, I can say what I want and be fine. The voice in the emails was one of my favorite things in the book.

I really liked this book and give it 5 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-0385514637
Published: June 7, 2005
Author Website
Kari got this book from BookMooch