Editing Emma by Chloe Seager

Synopsis (Goodreads) 

Pages: 368

Publisher: HQ

Released: 10th of August 2017 

When sixteen-year-old Emma Nash is ‘ghosted’ by the love of her life Leon Naylor, she does what any normal teenage girl would do…

Emma spends the summer lurking in her bedroom, avoiding all human contact (and the shower), surrounded by the collection of chewit wrappers she saved from packs Leon gave her, back when he actually acknowledged her existence…

But seeing Leon suddenly ‘In a relationship’ on Facebook with the perfect Anna, spurs Emma into action and she embarks on a mission to make positive changes to her life (or ‘edits,’ if you will) and vows to use the internet for more than obsessively stalking Leon’s activities! Instead, she will use it for good and noble causes like finding someone who will actually be nice to her, and recording her findings for the rest of the world to see (i.e. BFF Steph and her mum) on her new Editing Emma blog.

But Emma soon discovers her ‘habit’ is harder to break than she first thought – turns out she’s not the only one ‘editing’ herself online (thank you Tinder for finding her mum’s profile, age 35, really?) and that life through an Instagram filter isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. But it could be worse, she could have outed her best friend, accidentally chatted up a 12 year old boy and revealed to the world why Leon Naylor is worth no girl’s time or virginity… oh no wait, that’s exactly what happened…

What I Have to Say 

This book had good messages at the heart of it, but it had way too much stuff about sex and masturbation in it for me. I think it's good that it showed that girls masturbate as well as boys, but it just made me feel really awkward when Emma kept going on about how much she masturbated? I felt like it was just a little too much. It just felt like the whole book was about sex really. 

There were a lot of feminist issues addressed in the book that I approved of though. The story, behind all the boys and dating and masturbation is really about Emma finding herself. It's about her processing what happened with Leon and finding out that her methods to deal with it are really that great. I really felt there were some good messages in this book, especially towards the end. 

All in all though, I was just so put off by the sex stuff. I found it hard to empathise with Emma, even though I felt so sorry about her having to suffer through such a horrible way to be broken up with. By the end I liked her a bit better because she was a more developed character, but it's the beginning that invests you in a book or not. 

As an adult reading this, I do think that maybe actual teenagers would connect better with this book. 

My thanks go to HQ and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

Freshers by Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 367

Publisher: Chicken House Books 

Released: 3rd of August 2017 

Uni beckons. Phoebe can’t wait to be a fresher – especially since her crush from school will be there too. She’ll be totally different at Uni: cooler, prettier, smarter … the perfect potential girlfriend. She’ll reinvent herself completely. But Luke’s oblivious, still reeling from the fallout of the break-up with his ex. Thrown head first into a world of new friends, parties and social media disasters – can Phoebe and Luke survive the year, let alone find each other?

What I Have to Say 

Me and my friends at Uni were very different from Phoebe or Luke or any of the people they hang out with, but somehow this book captured the madness that was Fresher's week and the whole first term really. The ups, the down, the break-ups, the hook ups and just the whole experience of being away from home and living with people who you don't know. 

As with all of Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison's characters, I loved them all in their unique ways (except the ones we're not meant to like of course). I thought the whole stuff surrounding Luke and the football team was really interesting and a good thing to bring awareness to. Because it was gross and disgusting and they handled it well. 

One thing I will say though, which is not a criticism of the book really, but too many books about University involve binge drinking and parties. There aren't any books or even parts of books about the insane other stuff that happens. The groups who hang out and marathon Disney movies all night. Or who do other crazy stuff that doesn't involve drinking. In Freshers there was the Quidditch and there was one character who didn't drink, but it still made out that Uni is just all about binge drinking. It gives the wrong impression to people who don't drink but want to go to Uni. It is something that some people worry about and I think more needs to be written about non-drinking Uni students. 

My thanks go to Chicken House Books and Nina Douglas for providing me with a copy for this book for review.