This book will make a fantastic self-selected read for middle and high school students. The plot was strong, yet mysterious and the characters had depth that propelled the book forward.

This book was so lovely. I cried but I also laughed. I thought the story was fast paced and hooked me in immediately. I could feel myself connecting with Amelia and cheering her own as she tried to find her place with Nolan. It is a lovely coming of age story that is perfect for YA readers.

This story was absolutely beautiful. I cried so many times and felt the pain from our main characters Amelia and Nolan. This is a story that will forever stay in my heart. I’ve never been able to deal with grief in a personal matter but this story gave me a different perspective that I will cherish forever! Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read an amazing book. I will definitely purchase a physical copy for my collection.

Amelia Unabridged.. why did I take so long to read you??? I’ve had this one sitting in my kindle for a minute and thanks to @lovearctually for hosting a buddy read.

My first 5 star book this year! I loved it. I just wanted to be Amelia’s friend.. and I wanted to get absorbed in the land of Orman and just read all day in Val’s bookstore with Wally next to me and Nolan reading aloud.

This YA book was such a wonderful surprise! I fell in love with the characters (ALL of them), the writing and the story.

Amelia and Nolan find each other through happenstance as they are both dealing with devastating loss. But while this is a story of healing, hope and finding your someone who gets you, it is also very much about family…not necessarily your biological one, but the family you make.

The writing here is simply magical, deeply felt and heartbreakingly honest. And while yes, it deals with grief, it also deals with the solace of opening up and being vulnerable in order to move forward in life.

Hard to believe this is a debut from an author that I will definitely be watching. Highly recommended.

My thanks to #NetGalley and #WednesdayBooks for providing me the early ARC. The opinions are strictly my own.

This book was received as an ARC from St. Martin's Press - Wednesday Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I openly related to this book and the struggle Amelia went through from finding her book series obsession, to being mad at her best friend for meeting the author first, then her best friend getting into a car accident before they even got the chance to even patch things up and then she ends up at a mysterious book shop with the a copy of the unreleased next book in the series and her idol handing it to her and it was all a sign from her best friend saying she was sorry and she finally met her idol and becoming close. We all see signs around us wondering their origin and this book goes to prove of the gifts we are given everyday and we should cherish them at every moment.

We will consider adding this title to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

“Everything is a story, not just writing. You need to find the story that means something to you, a story you like telling.”

I honestly didn’t know what to expect going into this book. I was afraid that the book was going to be to much heartbreak to handle but after reading it I have to say this book officially has my heart. It was so good. Though there’s heartbreak and loss in this book…there is also laughter and some romance. Just learning how to live with the loss of someone that means the world to you. All of that is just balanced so well through out the book and I know I already said it but Oh my goodness this book was so so good.

So I just have to say I just loved all the characters. Wally might just be my favorite character ever. I secretly wish that Val’s was a real place because I would basically live there. I loved Nola and Alex’s friendship (aka bromance). There were so many funny moments in this book and I laughed out loud countless times. The romance was sweet and super adorable. I also really loved how the epilogue was written. It’s unique and different and I’m 100% her for it.

With all of the being said you should 100% read this book because have i mentioned it so so good. Loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance digital copy of this book!

*I received a advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

This book was heartbreaking, beautiful, and uplifting at the same time. Amelia's voice immediately pulled me in and didn't let go. I'll definitely be recommending this book.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for providing my review copy.

Wow. I don’t even know what to say. Amelia & Jenna & Nolan & Alex & Wally. I’m going to need one of those shirts.

Years ago I purchased my very first piece of original artwork. It’s a water color painting of a whale flying through the sky over a city skyline. It’s beautiful and full of magic and color. Fate? I don’t know why I had to have the painting, but I did. Here we are 6 years later and I just finished the most gut wrenching story of books and magic and love and loss. And I can see the whales.

For readers who have ever lost someone close to them, who know what the deep, darkness of loneliness feels like, who have loved with ever fiber in their being, please read this book.

What an absolutely heartbreaking but wonderful story. Well-written and perfectly paced, there are solitary lines that absolutely took my breath away. There were at least 2 times that solo lines brought tears to my eyes. Chapter three was surprising.

I don't add many books to my Favorites list, but I am absolutely adding this one. I loved it.

There are some novels that are written in the first person so well that it feels as though you’re reading a heartfelt memoir. Amelia Unabridged is that kind of story.

Amelia is a teenage girl with the world ahead of her as she and her best friend Jenna navigate the last year of high school and prepare for college. But Amelia is a lot different than Jenna. Amelia comes from a split family, living with a mom who struggles with the outcome of divorce and poverty. Through a shared love of reading, particularly the bestselling books, the Orman Chronicles, the girls create an unbreakable bond. Until tragedy strikes, and Amelia is left wondering how to pick up the pieces.

Without going into too much detail on what unfolds, I will say that this novel tugs on the heartstrings in the most beautiful way. It’s incredibly well-written; so much so that I finished it in a span of two days. I highly recommend this book for fans of YA novels!

Thank you to NetGalley, Wednesday Books and St. Martin’s Publishing Group for providing an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Extra special thanks to NetGalley for the advance read of "Amelia Unabridged since I'm besides myself to express how much I loved this book.
First thing that grabbed me: it's a book about a book and how a love of reading, how a love of losing yourself in the imagined world of a story can be so transformative, so healing. I think everyone who loves to read, who's spent days and days enraptured in a book, will feel immediately for the character of Amelia.
Second thing that grabbed me: The book's deeply felt, beautifully written depiction of the wonderful friendship of these two girls......Amelia, suffering the hurt of a broken family and the live wire Jenna who envelopes Amelia not only with the bond of her friendship but that of Jenna's family as well.
Third thing that really grabbed me.......that friendship going awry and tragedy striking when the girls travel to meet the equally young author of the fantasy novel that's captivated their imaginations.
I would not dare to go into any more detailed plot descriptions because this is story swirling with so many powerful themes, (the everlasting bonds of friendship, coping with grief and discovering love) you should discover for yourselves how this story plays out.
Without a doubt, a five star keeper.

Amelia Unabridged is a beautiful story. I can’t begin to paraphrase the plot, so please read the book description. There are many emotions that go along with unexpectedly losing someone you love and wondering what your life is supposed to look like now that you are left to navigate your future without them. This book explores those emotions and the grieving process in a sweet, whimsical, and honest way. At the same time, the romance of two young people develops throughout. The writing is wonderful, creative, and enticing. There are pieces of the story that read like a fantasy, others as a romance, and yet, at its core, Amelia Unabridged is an inspiring coming-of-age story. I can’t say enough how much I adored this book and how much it has inspired me in how I move forward after the losses I have endured. 💕
Thank you to @netgalley @stmartinspress and @ashwritesbooks for a digital arc in exchange for an honest review. 🐳

I received this ARC from the publisher through NetGalley. Thank you!

Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher is a lovely debut and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to read this ARC. Ashley Schumacher wrote about the magic of books and the magic of reading. It’s was wonderful to read about the love for books.

“There’s nothing in the world a good book can’t cure.”

Amelia and Jenna become friends through their love for the series Orman Chronicles by the young and the mysterious N. E. Endsley. Amelia and Jenna were friends their whole life and they inseparable. Amelia becomes part of Jenna’s family and they made plans for the future. The girls had the opportunity to meet the mysterious N. E. Endsley and they were happy but just one girl had the chance to meet him and to talk to him. They had a huge fight and they didn’t have the chance to mend the things between them because Jenna died.

After the death of Jenna, Amelia was lost and didn’t know what to do with her life. She receives a mysterious package with a special edition of book one of the Orman Chronicles and she felt that is Jenna’s last gift for her. She decided that she wants answers about the special edition and she goes to find them.

“Friends don’t touch other friends’ faces and stare into their eyes like the sun is shining out of their every pore”.

In her journey, to find who sent the book, she finally meets the mysterious N. E. Endsley and they form a special connection and friendship. They talk and found that they had things in common and they help each other to find peace and to heal.

“I hate endings,” he says. “Hate them. If the story is good, it’s never going to be long enough”.

Amelia Unabridged is a story with well-developed characters and a realistic story. This story is about grief, second chances, and love. It’s about healing and finding happiness after loss. I love Nolan and Amelia and I recommend to everyone to read their story.
Blog post: 18.01.2021
Goodreads review: Jan 16, 2021

I received an egalley of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks go to NetGalley and to St. Martin’s Press for this opportunity!

Amelia and Jenna are best friends. When Amelia’s dad leaves, she is bereft, finding comfort in books. Jenna, unreachably popular, comforts her and even buys her a book, the first in the Orman Chronicles. Amelia reads the book in one sitting and becomes obsessed, sharing her obsession with Jenna. The two become fast friends, the Orman Chronicles at the heart of their friendship. They go to a festival where the famous N. E. Endsley is to sign books but he ducks out of the event at the last minute. Jenna admits that she spoke with Endsley while Amelia was in the bathroom. He was having a panic attack and she comforted him, encouraged him to take care of himself, and he subsequently left the event.

Amelia loves the Orman Chronicles for how they helped her deal with her parent’s divorce and how they brought her and Jenna together. When Jenna admits that she met Endsley, Amelia is very upset. She pushes aside her anger and frustration, pretending everything is okay, because Jenna leaves for Ireland the next day. Then, a week later, Jenna is dead, killed in a car accident.

When a mysterious rare edition of the first Orman Chronicles book shows up, addressed to Amelia, she feels compelled to figure out where it came from. Is it a last message from Jenna? Is Jenna somehow still alive? She goes to the bookshop the book came from, Val’s, in Michigan. Who does she find there but N. E. Endsley himself?

The romantic angle is immediately obvious, as soon as Endsley is introduced as being only a year or two older than Amelia. And, of course, it’s practically love at first sight. I’m always so tempted to not finish these books because they feel so trite and cheap, too fake and unrealistic to believe. I kept going anyway.

Amelia loses her best friend and her anchor. She doesn’t have anyone to encourage her anymore, her father too engrossed in his second wife and her mother drinking and drowning her sorrows in crappy TV. Sure, she has Jenna’s parents, who are like her real family in absence of her own. (That’s another thing--Jenna’s parents basically adopt Amelia, treating her like family, taking her on family vacations, spending money on her). But she doesn’t want to take more from them than she already has. And then she finds Nolan (Endsley) and latches on to him. I really would have rather that she’d just been friends with him. Really discovered who she was as a person without him or his friend Alex to guide her. She hardly seems like a person at all to me, at least for the first half or so of the book. With memories of Jenna and their time together, and how reliant Amelia was on her, intruding at every turn, I don’t get a sense of who Amelia is until much later in the book.

The language used, in the beginning in particular, had me questioning whether this was a fantasy book or not. Amelia uses her imagination to change her surroundings, to a degree that I actually wondered whether she was using magic in some way or form. This fades as the story goes on and, while the descriptions are quite beautiful and interesting, it would have been better to make clear that they were just imaginings.

There are a lot of good messages as regards grief and becoming your own person after you lose someone close to you. About chasing your dreams, not the dreams someone else chooses for you.

The beginning feels quite rushed. Amelia and Jenna have just graduated from high school and are going to a book festival as a graduation present. Then there’s the fight, and Amelia leaves. I think their friendship should have been more fleshed out before Jenna dies, so we can appreciate and grieve her, too. Instead, we’re left seeing their friendship through poignant memories in the aftermath. Jenna’s death just doesn’t hit the same in retrospect.

Also, Nolan is recovering from a tragedy of his own, which happened years ago. He’s still grieving from that and only seems to start healing when Amelia gets there. Over the course of a few days, he becomes a different person entirely. More confident and happy. More outgoing. I don’t like this whole instant love thing. It’s disturbing to see and it needs to stop appearing in young adult novels. It gives teens false expectations for how love is supposed to be and is a fairly dangerous mindset to go out into the world with.

Overall, I question the romantic plot and the rapid pace at which the characters change (over the course of a week). I enjoyed the language and descriptions, though they implied a much more fantastical aspect than was actually there. It made me want to wander into a wonderful bookstore and spend hours browsing the shelves, so it set the scene well enough. I also liked how books connect people, how they bring them closer and forge deep friendships. How real people read books and sometimes authors forget that. It’s quite a beautiful thing. But the overall plot was a little too fake for me--meeting and falling in love with your favorite author? And their feelings being returned instantly? And the whole mystery aspect--who sent the book and why? The explanation is a little weak and too little too late.

I will keep following the author. We share the same first name, after all, and I would like to see more of what she has to offer in future!

A certain category of books is magic for book lovers: books about the magic of books. (As my students would say: how meta.) Ashley Schumacher’s Amelia Unabridged offers that precise type of magic. Had I not started this YA debut novel at 11:00 on a school night, I have no doubt that I would have read it in one fell swoop.

Amelia Unabridged is about loss and grieving, about love and friendship, and (as stated) about books and reading. After Amelia Griffin’s father abandons Amelia and her mom to live with a woman not much older than Amelia, her mother basically leaves, too, absent for all but the shell of herself who sits and watches tv in their home. Seeking escape, Amelia goes to her local bookstore where Jenna, an acquaintance from school, befriends her. From that time on, Jenna is her “person,” the one who understands Amelia, with whom she plans her future, escapes the desolation of her past, and works through the experiences of her present. Together, they indulge their passions, including the Orman Chronicles, a fantasy series written by N. E. Endsley, a boy who is their age.

When Jenna dies in a horrible tragedy, Amelia is left without her anchor . . . and loses even the comfort of escaping into books. Her only glint of hope appears when she receives a mysterious delivery: a special edition of book one of the Orman Chronicles, numbered 101 of 100. Amelia is convinced that this is her last gift from Jenna, the last sign she’ll ever have of her best friend’s love and care, and so she sets out to solve the mystery. At a bookstore, of course.

I want to describe more of the plot—which features quirky characters, grumpiness and compassion, romance and friendship, and more grief to counter her own—but there’s such joy in the discovery here that I’ll stop summarizing. I’ll just say that it’s been a long time since I read a book that epitomized so vividly the absolute beauty and magic of a story, of a book that can encompass all that I need to read in a moment. I will be reading Amelia Unabridged again and anxiously waiting to pre-order whatever Ashley Schumacher writes next.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ What an amazing young adult read! The book kept me engaged the whole time and I can't wait to return to school and share the title and plot of this magical book with my students. The friendship between the two main characters is such a positive partnership. The characters are well-rounded and engaging and deal with heartbreak and very adult issues in a very realistic way. The variety of settings are all so rich and imaginative. The ending was completely satisfying. I am waiting for this to hit the charts as the top YA read very soon. An overall lovely and heartfelt novel. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me the ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Amelia Griffin is a young woman whose already lived her fair share of turmoil. As a result, she has found comfort in the company of her best friend, Jenna, and in the companionship of books.

One series in particular has provided solace over the years. It’s the Orman book series, written by an elusive teenage prodigy named N.E. Endlsey. Amelia has painstakingly poured over these books. Like any super fan, she would love to know more about the mysterious talent that created them. So when Amelia and Jenna get the chance to meet him, they understandably jump at the chance.

Unfortunately, Amelia’s hopes are dashed when she doesn’t get to meet the author as she planned. Other things in her life don’t go as planned either, leaving Amelia floundering more than ever before. Then a rare copy of her favorite book gets delivered, sending Amelia on a fantastical journey that’s better than any book.

The entire time I was reading Amelia, Unabridged I was reminded of something else I read that I just can’t seem to put my finger on. I also was taken aback by the beauty of Schumacher’s writing. This book is chock full of truisms and quotable lines. It also has great imagination and beautifully depicted imagery. I In a nutshell, this is a book for people who love books.

Amelia Unabridged is an impressive young adult debut from author Ashley Schumacher. I can’t wait to see what other journeys this author takes us on in the future!

What a wonderful debut by Ashley Schumacher.

I did not want it to end!!! Great writing that pulls you in and even though at the end it pushes you out, it holds on to your wrist and asks if you’d stay for a while and your book heart answers I am. I am. I am.

Loved it. I just finished it and I’m still with the characters. Beautiful story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books publishing for this ebook arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book does the most impressive balancing act with tackling the topics of grief and happiness. The overall plot and theme of this book should make for a depressing read. It is ultimately about death, grief, and moving on. It should not exactly make for light reading. While it is not light reading, it is also infused with light and joy. There is a lot of hope in this read. It was overall absolutely endearing.

I think part of this tempering of heavy topics is the characters. They are charming and it did not take me long before I was attached to them. I was invested in them and ready to protect them from all of the evils of the world. Why are they so precious?! They just are. I love them and, when I closed the book, I was still thinking about them.

I was kind of scared to pick this one up because I did not want to really read a heavy story, but it surprised me with how lovely it all was. I have no doubt that I will be talking about this book months on and still recommending it to others. It already feels like one of those books that sticks with you and you tell others about. It is one of those that sit on your shelf and you are glad it is there.