Text/Chat/Email follows 24-year-old Emily as she navigates a romantic crisis: she's living with Brian, the guy she's been dating since high school, but she can't stop thinking about a guy she just met. And (hello, did you see where I said she's 24?) she does not handle it well. What I really loved about this book is how messy it is, in a way that often gets smoothed over in books and television. Sometimes people make bad choices, or weird choices, or just put off making choices, and the results are complicated and unpredictable and confusing. I also really appreciated the way that Emily's choices in one relationship affect her other relationships; nothing is neatly cordoned off. Reading Text/Chat/Email is like eavesdropping on someone at Starbucks, crossed with a Taylor Swift album (and let me be clear: those are two of my favorite things.)
Oh, and did I mention it's funny? Here's one of my favorite lines: "If you were looking at two sides of a coin, Brian would be the really shiny side that looked like hardly any homeless people had put it in their mouths." I also really enjoyed the interactions (in chat, because DUH, what do people do at their jobs all day?) between Emily and her co-worker Britney. Emily's deadpan responses to Britney's weird doofiness made me laugh out loud, but I really appreciated that Britney gets fleshed out a little more as the book goes along, so she isn't just a ditzy stereotype.
This book is solidly New Adult material, which means that there is some (totally realistic) language and drinking (obligatory mention since this is usually a YA blog!) There is not, however, the graphic sex that most articles on NA seem to think define the genre. This is a character-driven story about taking stock of yourself, owning your choices, and trying to make sense of adult life.
Edited to add: Here's a link to the Goodreads page!
I haven't heard of this book before, but it sounds good. Another one for the TBR pile. I kind of like that's it is NA without all the sex. (Not that I'm a prude, I just like something different, you know?) Hope you're having a great Spring Break! I owe you an email. :-)
ReplyDelete