I know I've grown out of YA books, especially the contemporary ones, but this book just broke me in every way possible.
Easily one of the best ya contemporary books I have read in my life!

Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway was a surprisingly fun book. With such a hard topic, I was expecting the book to be a little darker, but that really wasn’t the case at all.

Emmy and Oliver were childhood friends until Oliver’s dad kidnapped him when he was 7. Oliver is finally found 10 years later and the book focuses on the aftermath.

All the characters in the book were likeable. Emmy was a endearing main character. She was smart and witty. I adored her group of friends. Caro and Drew were so funny. I loved all their banter.

The romance between Emmy and Oliver felt natural. They were sweet together. I think their relationship worked well, but I did feel like I could’ve gotten to know Oliver a bit better. I also found Emmy’s lack of understanding when it came to Oliver’s feelings about his dad a little irritating. Sure, it was complicated but she wasn’t very supportive.

Oliver’s disappearance effected everyone. Emmy’s parents became super overprotective. They drove me insane. I understand that Oliver’s disappearance was hard on them, but come on! Plus, it annoyed me that it took so long for Emmy to stand up to them.

Emmy & Oliver was narrated by Phoebe Strole. I think she did an amazing job bringing the story to life. Overall, I enjoyed the book. I was really happy with the way things ended. It was a nice contemporary read.

I liked certain things: Emmy & Oliver, as characters, were cute & pretty realistic teenagers. I liked Drew & Caro as individuals as well. & I genuinely laughed & felt sad during the book.
overall, though, this was pretty average. there were some grammatical errors that bugged.
so...3 stars.

Friends that became friends again ... Well more than friends

Gave this a 4.5! Loved how this book focuses on family and relationships. It has some romance, but that’s not the main focus! I ‘m glad i picked this up!

Well, that’s growing up, isn’t it?” my dad said. “You don’t always have to know. And things aren’t always fair. You just have to keep moving forward. A step in one direction.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / 5

(*fair warning: there will be spoilers at the end but they will be heavily marked*)

You know how you hear songs, or see a movie, or in this case read a book at the exact right time? That’s how I felt while I read this book. Before I went into it, I thought it would just be a decent book because it was one of the many books I have waiting to be read, and within a few pages I was hooked.

We follow Emmy and Oliver who live next door to each other, and one day, Oliver is kidnapped by his father and returns 10 years, YEARS, later and we follow what ensues afterwards.

^That was all I knew about it before reading it and seeing what happened. However this book is so much more than all of that, it touched on so many important topics like family dynamics, rough relationships between parents, homosexuality, and dealing with preparation for college.

The writing was soooooo good and compelling and this book was also hilarious. I laughed out loud so many times during this book, and then would switch to crying, and then laughing while crying, and crying from laughing too hard.

This book is a must read; I honestly can’t recommend it enough.


S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S


B

E

L

O

W




Okay, so the characters were absolutely amazing. I loved Emmy, Oliver, Drew & Caro and found them all so real to read about. Also, Oliver’s stepsisters Nora and Molly were so hilarious. I remember laughing out loud so many times from reading about them talking to Oliver about their pizza limitations.

Some of my favorite moments from this book were whenever they went to the party at Drew’s house and they all got drunk, and Caro was an emotional drunk talking about The Great Gatsby and then whenever Caro and Emmy went back to Caro’s house and Emmy whispered about how she kissed Oliver and Heather was under all the mess and said something like good for you. It was so funny omg

I loved how it dealt with Drew being gay, and how he felt about how his parents wouldn’t stand up for him because his grandma wouldn’t accept it and she paid for his parents’ mortgage. Then having his brother step up, and being overprotective was also really powerful to read about.

Reading about the family dynamics of Maureen and Oliver, and how they had the argument over dinner about Maureen not liking the person Oliver was now, and how Oliver’s father still raised him. It was such a real climax of the book ending with the twins crying and seeing the emotions just felt so raw. Likewise, whenever Emmy gets accepted into UCSD, and she can’t tell her parents because they’re too overprotective of her and whenever she showed them her wetsuit.

I don’t have enough praise for this book. If you read it, I’d love to talk to you about it and see your opinions. I hope you loved it as much as I did :)