And I loved it even more than the Betsy-Tacy books, I think. As wonderful as those books are, I never really connected much with Betsy and her easy-going ways with the boys and her crowd. When I was in high school and even sometimes in college, I usually felt a tiny bit awkward and ill at ease in big groups of kids talking and joking around, and I definitely was not good at talking with boys. I was really surprised by Betsy in the first high school book by how easily she joked around with the boys (it seemed like a bit of stretch for a freshman in high school, after she had been just a kid in the book before) and fell in and out of love with them. But I was so, so, so much like Emily. I felt like Emily WAS me. The boy she has a crush on talks to her and she can never think of anything witty or funny to say in response. She doesn't feel like she's totally a member of the group because she doesn't go out with boys, and she knows she's being left out of activities that involve the boys and girls together so she feels like she's on the outside of her "crowd." She doesn't mind too much but she does have a major crush on a boy named Don, who is sometimes nice to her and other times ignores her completely and says things that seem hurtful, and she doesn't know how to have witty repartee with him. There's one night when she's with all of her friends and she feels this utter despair because nobody wants her there and nobody cares that much about her--and I swear I have had that exact same horrible awkward feeling and knew exactly what she was describing. I don't know that I've read a book that described those feelings so well.
But the biggest thing that Emily is struggling with is that she is graduating from high school and is the only one from her crowd staying home and not going to college, because she needs to stay and take care of her elderly grandfather. The book is really the story of her self-transformation from the young, timid high school girl to a much more confident and self-motivated woman, because she learns that just because she isn't going to college doesn't mean she can't keep learning on her own and doing her own self-improvement. I loved that aspect of this book and I feel like that definitely applies to my life still today--I, like Emily, and staying home to take care of my loved ones and am not going out into the world to go to school or work, but I can definitely keep learning and be proactive in taking strides to develop my mind and my interests. I also liked that Emily's love story was less important than her own personal development, and I liked how her interest in Don faded and she gradually realized what a "cad" he was and how he didn't treat her right. Hooray for Emily!
I basically loved this book. I am apparently a huge sucker for old-fashioned books, I guess, based on my love for Lovelace's work. I'll have to read some more classics soon.
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