Emily's New Everything - Elizabeth Allison

Author: Elizabeth Allison

Genre: Romantic-Comedy.

Rating: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: Mixed feelings. The intent in the blurb and the content in the book don’t seem to match. It’s not a bad book but I expected more.

Story:

Emily Esposito, a young waitress, is thrown into emotional turmoil after her husband Tyler announces that he is in love with someone else and moving out of their home. Emily knows that her marriage has long been struggling but she still can’t accept the suddenness of his decision. Now all she wants to do is to make sure her three year old son Dante isn’t troubled by this drastic change. How will Emily adjust to the “new everything” around her? Read and find out.

The story is narrated in the first person perspective of Emily.

Where the book worked for me:

💖 The story has some cute and funny moments.

💖 Dante is adorable. A couple of the secondary characters such as Clara, Sophia and Michelle also make a mark.

💖 It is a quick read.

💖 For the first time, I saw a book about a waitress who was happy with her job and wanted to continue working as one rather than getting a miracle break and changing over the career almost overnight. This was an unusual but nice experience.

💖 No steam. All clean. (Romance, I mean.)

💖 The cover is really sweet.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

💔 The blurb and Emily’s declarations, both make it clear that Emily’s priority is going to be her son. But to be honest, she seems more obsessed with getting her dating life back on track (after a few months of the above incident). Her definition of “priority” didn’t match mine.

💔 The supposed basis of Emily’s character as per the blurb is that she is highly anxious, overworked and underappreciated. I thought this will immediately endear me to Emily. But I found her quite shallow and judgemental. She doesn’t shy away from pointing fingers at anyone and even pulling off rude pranks but can't stand the same happening to her. As I couldn’t connect with the character who was narrating the story to me, there went my enjoyment of the book.

💔 As Emily herself is so judgemental, I hope I can be a bit judgemental too. Emily needs to rethink her (and Dante’s) food intake! So much of fried food and junk food! Throughout the book, the only mention I found of anything healthy was one instance of carrot sticks. The rest was all deep-fried junk or desserts. C’mon, put Dante first! Eat healthy, Emily!

💔 Some parts of the plot didn’t make fiscal sense. Like Emily is supposed to be a waitress and not making enough in tips. She's very worried about the monetary situation after Tyler moves out. Yet, she seems to be spending money like water – umpteen new books on divorce and single parenting (No local library, I guess!), umpteen takeaways, makeup and makeovers, bubble baths… I felt more panicky about her financial condition than she seemed to be!

(I just realised that what I thought was four distinct negative points is essentially just one point – I hated Emily.)

💔 The whole plot doesn’t move in a smooth flow but is very episodic. There seems to be a series of unfortunate events and Emily has to face them. When one is sorted, the next issue comes knocking at her door. And so on till the end. It becomes quite repetitive after a while.

💔 The ending (where everything reaches the HEA stage) is too rushed.

💔 The men in the story aren’t developed well at all. They are all ‘revolving door’ characters, who walk in and out as per the need of the plot. The female characters, other than the ones I mentioned earlier, are quite unidimensional.

I guess if I had connected with Emily at least a little, I would have enjoyed this book a lot more. But she was too shallow, short-sighted and squandering for my liking. Still, it is a decent story, not a typical romcom, and goes by quickly. Can be picked up when you are looking for a light read.

My thanks to author Elizabeth Allison and BookSirens for the DRC of “Emily's New Everything”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.