New Author Obsession: Emery Lord

Hello All My Fellow Readers :)

As some of you may remember, one of my reading goals for 2016 was to discover some new authors that I had never read before, and I'm here today to discuss one of such authors.

I have recently read two books by Emery Lord, Open Road Summer, and The Start of Me and You, and I can honestly say that I fell head over heels in love with both of them, and I can't wait to read more from Emery Lord in the future. Here's the goodreads synopsis for these two books if you're not familiar with them:

Open Road Summer:

"After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own.

Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence.

This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking.

A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes."

and for The Start of Me and You

"Brimming with heartfelt relationships and authentic high-school dynamics The Start of Me and You proves that it’s never too late for second chances.

It’s been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died in an accident. After shutting out the world for two years, Paige is finally ready for a second chance at high school . . . and she has a plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple, it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max, moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!) her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to face her fears and finally open herself up to the life she was meant to live?"

I want to start off by saying I absolutely loved both of these books. I gave Open Road Summer four out of five stars, and The Start of Me and You five out of five stars, and they're both books I can definitely see myself rereading in the future. First I'm going to give my thoughts on Open Road Summer. This was a really inspiring book that deals with a main character (Reagan), who is in many ways her own worst enemy. Her mother left her when she was a child, her father turned to alcohol to deal with his stress over the situation, and Reagan is willing to put herself into any type of position for a temporary high, and the attention she's craving without even realizing she's doing so. Reagan's best friend, Lilah Montgomery, or "Dee" as only her closest friends call her, has always been Reagan's rock to stand on, but Dee is going big places in life with her country music career blowing up, and Reagan is going to be facing senior year at a school where she is slut-shamed and picked on for her many, bad choices, without having Dee around as her security blanket. After both Reagan and Dee suffer bad breakups for vastly, differing reasons, Dee decides to invite Reagan along on tour with her so the girls can have one last amazing summer, before they're varying duties pull them apart. But what starts as a best friends experience, turns into something more when controversy strikes, and Matt Finch (known mainly for his stint with his siblings as a young, pop sensation) joins the tour, and Reagan soon finds herself following for him, the last guy on earth she ever thought she would. 

 

I loved how Dee and Reagan's friendship is portrayed throughout the novel, and honestly part of me enjoyed this part of the story more than on the budding romance between Reagan and Matt. But that does not mean however that I didn't enjoy the romance, cause I truly did. It was awesome to see the chemistry develop between them, and the many obstacles that they had to conquer along the way really gave an interesting depth to the story. The only thing I didn't really like about this book, was I would have liked to have seen a little more focus on Dee and her broken heart as well, but I guess you never know, maybe Emery Lord will write more about this topic in the future.

My favorite quote: "If we could capture feelings like we capture pictures, none of us would ever leave our rooms. It would be so tempting to inhabit the good moments over and over again. But I don't want to be the kind of person who lives backwardly, who memorializes moments before she's finished living in them. So I plant my feet here on this hillside beside a boy who is undoing me, and I kiss him back like I mean it. And, God help me, with the sky wrapped around us in every direction, I do mean it."

Now on to The Start of Me and You, which was honestly my favorite of the two. Paige Hancock has not had a normal high school experience, her boyfriend of three months drowned in a boy scout accident, and since then she is the girl who everyone gives "The Look" to. She's tired of walking through life with everyone pitying her, and also tired of feeling guilty for living her life, so with the help of her three best friends; Tessa, Morgan and Kayleigh, she decides to reinvent her life this year, and get back to living the life she was on route for, before the horrible accident happened. One thing she decides is necessary to get her life back on track is to start dating (and kissing!) again, and she can only think of one guy deserving of her attention: Ryan Chase, who's been her crush since middle school. On her quest to get closer to Ryan however, she ends up befriending his goofy, and somewhat nerdy cousin Max, and finds herself finally able to confide everything in someone else. Max is captain of the quiz bowl team (which Paige ends up joining), is obsessed with airplanes, peanut butter girl scout cookies, and a random sci fi show that no one else has ever heard of, but he becomes the person that Paige is able to be herself around for the first time in a really long time. She's super close to her three best friends, but aside from that, no one else has seen the real her for a very long time.

Honestly, one of my absolute favorite parts of this book was watching the friendship between the characters. When she befriends Max and Ryan, soon their whole group of friends starts becoming close, and it's so refreshing to see a YA book that puts so much emphasis on the friendship factor. I also seriously loved watching Paige and Max's friendship develop more and more throughout the book. It was so interesting to see how while Ryan had been Paige's focus, Max is definitely a better friend to her, and is able to understand her in a way that no one else has been able to.

I absolutely loved this book, and I highly recommend it if you're a fan of YA contemporaries. It also kind of reminded me of Morgan Matson's books, and everyone knows just how much I love Morgan Matson.

My Favorite Quote: "Ryan Chase was my eighth-grade collage, aspirational and wide-eyed. But Max was the first bite of grilled cheese on a snowy day, the easy fit of my favorite jeans, that one old song that made it onto every playlist. Peanut-butter Girl Scout cookies instead of an ornate cake. Not glamorous or idealized or complicated. Just me.”  

Thanks For Reading Everyone :) I Hope You All Have A Great Week, and I will see you all in my next post.

This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own. The photo was taken by me with an iphone.