Amelia Unabridged

November 1, 2020

Gr 8 Up-Amelia and Jenna, best friends since middle school, attend a literary festival after graduation, since they share a passion for "The Orman Chronicles," a series written by the young and enigmatic N.E. Endsley. While there, curly-haired Jenna meets the author-but Amelia doesn't, driving a wedge between the two friends just as Jenna leaves for a trip to Ireland before they start college together in the fall. While overseas, Jenna dies in a car accident, leaving her parents and Amelia grief-stricken. Soon afterward, Amelia receives a rare copy of "The Orman Chronicles" in the mail, and she is sure Jenna is behind it. She tracks the book down to an eclectic bookstore in Michigan, where she meets the elusive author, who goes by Nolan. Schumacher's lovely debut will have romantics swooning over blonde-haired, blue-eyed Amelia and black-haired Nolan's love story. These two teens have endured loss and family trauma, but both have found acceptance and family elsewhere, and bring out the best in each other. The novel is also an ode to the love of reading and how books can provide the magic and comfort needed during difficult times. VERDICT Recommended for all YA collections. Readers will root for these resilient protagonists who face heartbreak and must make tough choices.-Nancy McKay, Byron P.L., IL

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2020
Grades 8-11 Effectively abandoned by her parents after their divorce, Amelia leans on her best friend, Jenna, who shares her obsession with the Orman Chronicles and N. E. Endsley, its reclusive teen author. Years later, their graduation present is a trip to a California book festival where Endsley is scheduled to appear. He cancels, and Amelia's disappointment sparks a rare falling out between the girls. Days later, Jenna dies in a car accident. Amelia is mired in grief when she receives a mysterious limited edition of the first Orman novel. She follows it to an enchanting small-town bookstore on a lake in Michigan. There Amelia encounters Nolan Endsley, who has also suffered a devastating loss. They fall in love, almost at first sight. The metaphors and imagery threading through the story are not always successful, and Amelia is something of a cipher after following Jenna's lead for so long. Still, fangirls and fanboys will delight in this romantic story, rooting for Amelia to choose the future of her dreams.

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December 7, 2020
Schumacher centers storytelling as a means of expression, connection, and keeping the dead alive in this emotionally immersive debut. Shortly after the death of her best friend, Jenna, 18-year-old Amelia receives a mysterious package containing a signed copy of her favorite book—the first of the Orman Chronicles fantasy series, written by 19-year-old N.E. Endsley. Sure that the book was sent by Jenna, Amelia heads to the lakeside Michigan town where it was posted to find answers about its provenance and Jenna’s death. Her search for meaning takes Amelia to a rambling, colorful bookstore, somehow both delightfully cozy and endlessly rambling, run by a wise bookseller named Val, her son Alex, and the reclusive N.E. Endsley himself, who Amelia soon discovers is harboring a painful loss and secrets of his own. Employ-
ing expressive prose that communicates the emotion and tumult that can accompany the death of a loved one at any age, Schumacher leaves characters—and readers—with a sense of hope. Ages 12–up. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary.

December 1, 2020
A grieving young woman sets out on a quest to meet her favorite reclusive fantasy writer. As a joint high school graduation gift from Jenna's parents, narrator Amelia and her best friend, Jenna, fly from their home in Texas to a California book festival so they can meet the reclusive author of the Orman Chronicles books. They leave disappointed, however, when young author N.E. Endsley--only 19--fails to appear. Less than a week later, Jenna dies while studying abroad in Ireland, a last fight between the girls left unresolved. Shortly thereafter, Amelia receives a mysterious limited edition of one of the Orman books, sent from a bookstore in Michigan. Jenna's parents, who have the financial means and have been treating Amelia for years, pay for her to go investigate; in a somewhat fairy-tale setting on Lake Michigan she meets and befriends Nolan Endsley, who's grieving losses of his own. Schumacher's debut meanders through vague fantasylike settings--a fort on the sand dunes, a mysterious room inside the bookstore--and a sort of half-felt emotional landscape of its characters. Nothing's really at risk for Amelia--at every turn, obstacles are smoothed from her path. Some of her relationships, especially with her parents, who mostly stay off-camera, are shown instead of felt. The timeline of Nolan's own tragedies and wild successes seems oddly compressed. Main characters are White. Like a meringue--sweet and decorative but doesn't really satisfy. (Fiction. 12-18)

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