About the Book
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 address, 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. 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?
My Review
What a charming and yet powerful novel this turned out to be. When I first started I wondered if we would be reading about a woman who never outgrew her teenage crush, but it was so much more. A poignant novel about love and letting go, Emmie was an interesting character to follow because she made me cringe – a lot. But I also liked her and was rooting for her – often. There was underlying theme of sadness throughout – Emmie doesn’t have much in her life, and what she did have kept seeming to go wrong for her – and the chapters definitely pulled at my heartstrings a bit. But there was also an undercurrent of redemption and learning how to love yourself first without needing another’s validation, and I was even a little surprised at the sweet ending.
4 stars
