On Dear Emmie Blue and My Not Quite Dead Yet Heart

I just finished reading Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis, and as soon as I read the final word, I came to write this post. I should probably stop writing these the night before they're meant to go out, and I will, eventually, when I get my life together and learn to better manage my time. But it worked out for me this time because this book is something I need to write about.

Dear Emmie Blue tells the story of the titular Emmie Blue, who, at the age of 16, attached her name and email address to a balloon and set it free, only for it to end up in France, found by Lucas Moreau. He emailed her and sparked a 14-year-long best friendship which sometimes blurred into a little more than friendship, a borderline toxic will they won't they situation which nonetheless saved Emmie's life. She fell in love with him, or thought she did, only for him to take her to dinner one night and ask her to be best woman at his upcoming wedding when she thought he was going to ask her to be his girlfriend. The rest of the book unfolds as Emmie tries to cope with the hiccup in her plan to live happily ever after with her best friend, in the process reuniting with her best friend's brother with whom she had a falling out when she was 19, for reasons undisclosed until later, getting to know the old woman she's lodging with, learning that she actually has friends who care about her outside of Lucas, working through trauma, and discovering who her father is.