Friday, April 2, 2021

Amelia Unabridged

 


Amelia Unabridged

by Ashley Schumacher

Wednesday Books, 2021. 293 pages. Young Adult Fiction

Amelia and Jenna are brought together by a book store and a book. They were meant to be best friends forever. They were going to go to college together and take all the same generals. They were going to be roommates. Jenna had it all planned out, and Amelia needed to be tethered to someone, so she gladly followed the plan.

The summer after graduation, Jenna and Amelia, super fans of N.E. Endsley's amazing Orman Chronicles, find themselves waiting for the panel that will announce the last book in the series, made by N.E. Endsley himself. Amelia heads for the restroom and while she is gone, Jenna meets the terrified Endsley, right outside of the authors' green room. He is having a panic attack. When Amelia returns, she hears the announcement that the Orman panel is canceled. Jenna is strangely quiet about it all. Later she tells Amelia that she tried to help Endsley by telling him to do what was best for him, which led to the panel cancelation. Amelia is devastated and angry. She hold’s Jenna accountable for all her dashed hopes and dreams about meeting Endsley. She is slow to forgive Jenna, so when Jenna is killed in a car accident a week later, Amelia is devastated again.

Amelia becomes obsessed with searching for signs from Jenna. When the 101st out of 100 copies of the leather bound Orman Chronicles shows up for her at her book store with no information about the sender, Amelia knows she needs to find out who sent it. She thinks it’s from Jenna, but she has to be sure. So, she heads to Michigan, to another bookstore that might know where the book came from. Little does she know that this bookstore will bring her together with none other than N.E. Endsley!

This book starts out devastatingly sad and ends impossibly. It's beautiful. With writerly prose that evokes vivid images like sky whales that surface whenever Amelia is feeling something deeply, this book uses the language of anxiety and trauma. It resonates deeply with those who have been through similar tragedies. But the book is also just so fun and lovely. If you can get to Michigan with Amelia, you have a big chance of loving this book. For fans of Sara Zarr and Jandy Nelson.

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