Title: Emerald City
Author: Alicia K. Leppert
Publisher: Sweetwater Books
Publication Date: April 2012
Genre: Adult/YA
Series or Stand Alone: Series, Book One
Synopsis can be found here.
Review:
After a traumatic event, Olivia’s life has spiraled out of control. One day, she finds herself taking her own life. Or at least, trying to. Instead, she wakes up in a hospital, and is told her neighbor has rescued her. A neighbor she never knew she had.
Jude introduces himself as the neighbor who saved her. While Olivia is skeptical at first, Jude quickly breaks down her walls and they find themselves becoming fast friends. Maybe more. But there’s too much Olivia doesn’t know about Jude. What is he hiding? And how did he rescue her? She was in her bedroom, and thought she had locked her door…
I wasn’t sure what to categorize Emerald City as. At the beginning of the book, I would categorize it as Adult, but as the story continued, I noticed how the voice changed to YA. So maybe it’s some sort of cross.
Olivia is a complex character. She is severely depressed when the novel opens and through the story, she is on this very long and difficult journey. But don’t let her fool you. She grows into this very strong and thoughtful character. Anyone who has ever known someone who deals with depression will find the story very real. It can be difficult to read as it’s very heavy and sad, but that just makes her transformation stronger.
Of course, Jude is wonderful. Soft spoken, true and totally beautiful, I knew his secret pretty early on. But that didn’t take away from the story. I looked forward to seeing how Olivia would handle Jude’s secrets and enjoyed their natural friendship.
I read this book slowly, enjoying the language and the heavy tone. It has a slow, liquid feel, watching nature happen. Very organic and real. The main characters were true to themselves and weren’t forced. Events didn’t happen too quickly. Well paced and emotion.
Jude is far from safe, and Olivia is becoming the fighter I know she can be. I will definitely read future books.
Rating 7 Pretty Cool Would Recommend
Kimberly majored in Songwriting and currently works full time in the music industry. When she's not listening to music, knitting or writing, you can find her outside reading her favorite genres: Young Adult, Adult Fiction, Mystery, and Romance.
this one looks pretty interesting. i really like the mysterious cover and i love the name jude. 🙂 thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I totally agree! I thought it was a very real book, and I loved that you described it as organic! I didn’t say that in my review of it but that is such a great way to put it! I’m glad you liked it too. (and I think it is more of a cross-over book too. something they would classify as “new adult”, but I had the same thought process as you did on that one)
Thanks Michelle! I like reading other people’s reviews of the same book too, just to see what they say! I’m going to read the second one. I think this might grow into a really great series.
Thanks for the great review!