"There's nothing in the world a good book can't cure."

Amelia and Jenna are from two worlds, but the best of friends. Their whole lives are laid out together, college and beyond. When they were younger, the Orman Chronicles bonds the girls. Amelia often parallels her present with the Orman world, using it to escape and cope with the hardships in her life, giving her a sense of comfort when things get hard.

But when Amelia graduates high school, tragedy strikes and she must learn how to carry on without a big piece of her life standing by her side. Soon after, Amelia receives a mysterious package that forces her on an adventure to the town of Lochbrook, Michigan to figure out who sent it. There, Amelia meets the reclusive Nolan, who just might be the key to not only finding out the origin of the mysterious package, but also the key to finding Amelia's true self.

Even though the year has just begun, this will be one of my top reads of 2021. The writing is absolutely masterful. It grips you from page one and you cannot put this book down. I found myself constantly highlighting lines and passages. Not only are the cast of characters unique, they also each have their purpose on Amelia's journey. The setting is absolutely divine - I want to be able to visit Val's Bookstore.

What I loved most was how deep this book was. It forces you to think and feel. And goodness, will you cry. This book is a must read. Whether you like YA novels or not, Amelia Unabridged is a book for everyone. Amelia Unabridged tackles loss, grief, anxiety, and finding ones true purpose in life.

I love how this book kind of has a book within a book - Amelia is a teenager that has a best friend, loves a book series written by an enigmatic teenager that no one knows much about, and is starting to think what to do for college. Her typical teenager life gets radically changed after she loses her best friend and decides to embark on a journey to find out why she received a signed copy of one of the books by their beloved author. She ends up meeting a lot of people in her journey and adjusting her plans for the future.

I gulped this one down in a day, and I really enjoyed it. It's a delicious story of books, friendship, love, grief, and figuring out your place in the world. YA book fans will fall in love with the characters and the story. I'll definitely be recommending it to customers at the book store where I work.

Thank you St Martin’s and Net Galley for this ARC
A lovely delicious read from Ashley Schumacher perfectly telling a story of love and loss. This read is beautiful, fun and reflective all at the same time.

“there are a hundred thousand ways to tell a story... everything is a story, not just writing. you need to find the story that means something to you, a story you like telling”

- big themes of friendship and coping with grief along with figuring out your path in life
- a book for true lovers of stories of all kinds
- an enchanting bookstore
- beautiful writing; VIVID and descriptive emotions
- allllllllll the feels, really all of them; definitely cried!
- ethereal magic woven into reality

This powerful debut from Ashley Schumacher is a must-read!

I was blown away by the writing from the very beginning, it is rare that you get such a sense of a story's "soul" from the Prologue like you get this with this. I immediately knew this was going to be the type of book I didn't want to end.

The story centers around Amelia Griffin and her obsession with the writer of her favorite series--the books that brought her closer to her very best friend, Jenna. After Jenna is tragically killed in a car accident, Amelia receives a rare special edition copy of the first book in the series. She travels to the bookstore it was sent from, meeting the writer himself.

What follows is beautiful, heartbreaking and completely moving.

This is a book lover's book, complete with a complicated writer, the most t0-die-for bookstore and incredibly quotable writing throughout. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC in exchange for my honest review (thank you NetGalley, Wednesday Books and St. Martin's Press!) but this is one I will be buying when it's released because it is THAT good.

All the heart, tears, and smiles for this one!

Grief is a wholly undesirable emotion. No one wants to patiently slog through the countless moments and days and years of the myriad feelings and thoughts that accompany a devastating loss. For that reason, there aren't many fiction books that deal with this sensitive topic with such tenderness and heart and hope as Amelia Unabridged.

When Amelia loses her best friend right before they were to start college together, she is unmoored. The last thing she expects to receive is an impossible edition of the book that brought them together. The book leads her on a personal journey where she unexpectedly finds another soul who just might be the key to understanding how to move on.

Oh, this book. I realize it's the first week of January, but I feel confident in saying that this is going to be a top read for me this year. Books that carve a place for grief and hold it gently throughout the whole story are so rare. Too often, a character experiences something tragic but is forced to move past it too quickly. For others who have experienced great loss, you know how disappointing such a cursory portrayal can feel.

Well, not in this book.

Amelia Unabridged breaks your heart, and sits with you through the excruciating process of mourning and denying and searching. It allows the fear and anxiety and utter terror to exist without rushing it away. It acknowledges the different timelines and ways of grieving, and shows how some paths can lead to a desolate place, while nudging you toward the other choice of growth. And maybe, just maybe, some friendship and love and chosen family along the way.

I can't say enough about the wonder that is this book. It's whimsical and magical, yet tethered in the most basic and true emotions. Ashley Schumacher, you are a courageous and brilliant soul, and reading this book was an honor. It will forever be a favorite!

Thanks to Wednesday Books (St. Martins Press) for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

“Sometimes the best way to absolve the guilty is to let them feel the weight of their culpability no matter how untrue.”

Breathtaking and beautiful this book takes you on a journey of self discovery and grief. Amelia meets Jenna after her father leaves and she finds herself standing outside a bookstore. The pair become obsessed with The Orman Chronicles written by a standoffish author named N.E. Endsley. After they graduate they attend a book conference in hopes of meeting the author but things go terribly wring when N.E. Endsley mysteriously leaves. When Amelia finds out Jenna met the author while she was in the bathroom it results in a giant fight. Before they can make up, Jenna dies in a car accident. When a special/limited edition of The Orman Chronicles arrives addressed to her she’s sure Jenna somehow sent to her. She decides to journey to the bookstore that sent it in search of answers. When she arrives at the store she comes face to face with the author, N.E. Endsley or Nolan.

I absolutely loved this book. It has been a long time where I truly felt emotionally invested in a book. Where I had to set the book down just so I could feel all the emotions deep within myself. I loved everything about this book. It was raw and captivating from start to finish. I loved how Amelia and Nolan helped one other work though their own traumas to find their true self. A story about friendship, grief and love. I am struggling to give this review the justice it deserves but I promise you it’s amazing. Add this to your list today!

This sweeping, all encompassing book is a book for book lovers. I don’t mean your casual book lover. I mean the book lover that you feel like you are in a book, you touch the landscape of the setting, you envision what everything looks like, you taste the food and feel the rain. You are the book lover that you are IN the book. You are the book lover that a book has rescued you from pain, been your best friend in darkness and made you laugh from despair. This is your book.
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Every book lover has THE book that takes them back to a certain time in their lives and for 18 year old Amelia it’s the Ormen Chronicles written by teen N. E. Endsley. These are the books that saved her when her father left and that led her to her best friend Jenna. As their high school graduation gift they go to a book festival to finally meet the reclusive author and to hear the big reveal for book three but things go terribly wrong and Endsley flees and Jenna and Amelia end up in a blow up fight. Before they have time to make up Jenna dies. (Not a spoiler it’s in the blurb).
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Amelia takes a leap of faith after receiving a mysterious 101 of 100 special edition leather bound book. This leap leads her all the way to a tiny town in Michigan and the most amazing book shop. I wish this place was real I would be there in a second.
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I cannot even convey how much I love every single thing about this book. This is not just a book. This book gets right what it truly means to be a book lover. What it means to escape in a book and what it means when words bring us together.
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Put this on your radar now for February 16th!
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Thank you to @wednesdaybooks and #netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review
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I cannot wait to discuss this with @lovearctually
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I love when a book is an unexpected surprise. I had no clue I would fall in love with this book. What was your last unexpected surprise book?
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#quarantine#foffimreading#bookclub#bookaddict#bookcommunity#goodreads#bookishbounds#jan2021#bookishladiesclub#bookwineandmetime#ameliaunabridged#ashleyschumacher#wednesdaybooks#buddyread#netgalley#lovearctually

I loved this story. I could relate with Amelia and how books impact her life. Beautiful narrative with memorable character. I couldn't put it down and read it in on relaxing Saturday.

This book... Wow! I laughed and cried and felt the roller coaster of emotions. It was so beautiful! Amelia has just graduated high school and her and her best friend attend a book conference to meet their favorite author. While Amelia is in the restroom her best friend meets the author while he is having a panic attack. He cancels the signing and Amelia and her friend head back home. On the way back Jenna (BFF) tells Amelia she met Nolan (the author). Amelia is angry and jealous. Needless to say, Jenna leaves a couple days later for a summer trip to Ireland. Although they leave on pretty good terms, Amelia is still upset. Jenna does while in Ireland in a car accident and Amelia is shocked and saddened and lost. A boo arrives for Amelia at the local bookstore. It’s a rare book edition by her favorite author. The rest of the book is Amelias quest to find out how she got the book. To get more information about Jenna, the author, and to find herself.
The book was beautifully written. The characters were so lovable. Wally (the dog) was an integral part of the story. The author wove beautiful fantasy prose alongside real life problems. This will remain in my top 2021 books and maybe just a favorite in general.

This book had a lot of important messages, told on the background of a beautiful storyscape. Amelia comes from a family where her dad left and her mom is a shell of who she used to be. She meets a girl who becomes her best friend and they grow up together as sisters. But then tragedy strikes and Amelia has to figure out who gets to write her story.
This book came at a perfect time while I was looking for more books where the parents are divorced. While this book still deals more with the themes of grief and loss, it was still an undercurrent and was a catalyst for many events in this story.
The prose was beautiful, the characters were vibrant and flawed, and I loved the conclusion.

I couldn't put this book down. It filled my heart with warmth and I loved every moment of it. You cared about the characters and what became of their journey. I have often felt the same connection to a book as Amelia did and it was wonderful to read about that type of connection in a novel. Well done Ms. Schumacher@

I heard good things about this book and was excited to read it! Thanks to Netgalley for the Arc so I could give my honest opinion. I would recommend this book

This book made me feel so deeply I still haven't recovered. I was not prepared for the heaviness of it, but also the sheer amount of warmth and beauty. Here is a little tmi: While I was still in the middle of reading "Amelia Unabridged" one of my best friends in the world tragically passed away. Maybe this adds to just how much I was affected by this very special little story, to how memorable it is for me personally. It most definitely highlighted how incredibly well Ashley Schumacher writes about grief. I could feel it seep through the pages into my very own being. It is impossible not to relate to Amelia, not to understand her, feel for her, grieve with her.

But this book is not a sad tragedy, no drama that revels in breaking the hearts of its readers. Amelia's story is about love, too, about getting to know oneself, about standing up for who you are and what you want in the face of choices that seem impossible. It is incredibly warm and positive. It's a loving embrace after a terrible tragedy. It's a beautiful reminder that life does not end when you feel like all is lost, that there are always chances for a new beginning, that you can still win even if you already feel defeated. It's a rallying cry for all of us to take our time and figure out what kind of story we want to tell in our life, and just how we want to tell it. And to boot, it's a love letter to books and stories and found families.

All of this is written so beautifully that I sometimes felt like reading poetry or admiring a painting. I will carry this book with me for a long time, and not only because of what it meant for me personally. I hope many many people will do themselves a favor and read this.

Amelia Griffin and her best friend Jenna met because of N. E. Endsley's Ornan Chronicles. They're the books that gave Amelia a refuge after her father left and her family fell apart. They're the books that gave her Jenna and, through her, a second family.

Seeing N. E. Endsley at an author festival should be the perfect start to their last summer before college. Instead, it all goes horribly wrong when Jenna has a chance encounter with the author and Amelia doesn't.

Before either of them can back away from their biggest fight ever, Jenna is killed in a car accident.

Without Jenna Amelia isn't sure who she is, let alone what her future should look like.

When a rare edition of the Ornan Chronicles makes its way to Amelia, she's certain the book is a last gift--maybe even a last message--from Jenna. Amelia tracks the book's journey back to a charming bookstore in Michigan where she also finds the reclusive author himself.

Amelia knows the book is a clue, a message. But it's only as she gets to know N. E. Endsley that Amelia begins to realize the book is just the beginning of what Jenna was trying to share with her in Amelia Unabridged (2021) by Ashley Schumacher.

Find it on Bookshop.

Amelia Unabridged is Schumacher's debut novel. The story is written in Amelia's first person narration with some flashbacks to key moments in her friendship with Jenna.

This book holds a special place for me after I had the chance to read an early copy in 2020 to potentially blurb it. Schumacher's writing is top-notch as she delivers a story that is both wrenching and hopeful.

This ode to books and magic (and books about magic) offers a meditative exploration of grief and healing as Amelia and Nolan (N. E. Endsley) both work through their own tragedies and figure out how to move forward in a world that their losses have rendered unrecognizable.

Amelia Unabridged is a nuanced and poignant story about finding your place and your people when all of the things you've learned to take for granted are torn away. Whimsical without being twee, authentic without being brutal; Amelia is a heroine readers won't soon forget.

Possible Pairings: Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, Finding Mr. Brightside by Jay Clark, Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley, Everything All At Once by Katrina Leno, The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, Tonight the Streets Are Ours by Leila Sales, Eliza and Her Monster by Francesca Zappia, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

I've been wanting to use the words "richly imagined" in one of my reviews, and now I finally have my chance to do it for Ashley schumacher's <u>Amelia Unabridged</>. Flying whales, a personal storm cloud that rains on Amelia invisibly during her darkest moments, spirit -infested winds that (usually) push her in the right direction, and the enchanted forest of Ormon - Amelia's world is no ordinary place. Amelia's best friend, Jenna Williams, is the star in her universe - the undeniable force of Nature that makes all things possible.. As Amelia so aptly puts it:

"If (Jenna) was a star in the galaxy, I was one of those astronauts that gets disconnected from their ship and floats through space until they run out of oxygen."

Jenna brings magic and possibility into Amelia's dreary, difficult life. Amelia's father has left,and her mother has retreated into herself. Jenna's irrepressible zest for life (and her parents' money) brighten Amelia's world when she is unofficially adopted into the Williams family as Jenna's Bestie and Soul Sister.

When tragedy strikes and Jenna is killed in a car accident, Amelia is bereft, unable to move on with her own life. Jenna had so many plans for them both - she'd mapped it all out on a chart. How could she leave for college and fulfill Jenna's plans for them without her?

One day, shortly after Jenna's funeral, Amelia receives a rare edition of a book from her favourite author, N.E. Endsley. Her decision to travel to Michigan and seek out the identity of the person who mailed her the book is one of many decisions that eventually lead Amelia on the path to autonomy and self-fulfillment. (Note: Jenna had plotted out an academic career for Amelia, totally disregarding Amelia's gift as a photographer.)

I enjoyed this vividly written story: I was always eager to get back to it. The Epilogue was sadly sweet, as summing ups will sometimes be. I highly recommend this superbly written Young/New Adult novel to everyone. A solid 5 out of 5! My thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my goodness!!! Can we get some TISSUE over here PLEASE!!! This book gave me all the feels I never wanted to finish it but all great things come to an end, and also great books that will leave a lasting mark in my SOUL!

Ok I’m done being overly dramatic, ok maybe not fully done, lol. Anyway, we meet Amelia and Jenna, Amelia’s dad abandons her and her mom for a younger woman and on this horrible day she goes to a bookstore that she can’t really afford to buy from and she bumps into Jenna and it’s like Amelia’s whole life completely changes. I love that even though she has become friends with Jenna and they have this amazing love for books, and Jenna comes from a lot of money, that Amelia is still very humble throughout this whole book even when her family are HELLA GENEROUS.

Anyway I love Amelia’s obsession with the Orman chronicles, and reading in general, she believes that books can heal, they both do. Anyway tragedy strikes and it hits very close to home, and Amelia doesn’t function the way she used to anymore, losing Jenna was horrible for her. Then she gets this amazing gift, that she swears it’s a sign from her best friend and she wants to investigate why.

Now this is the part where I start to fall in love with Amelia even more. She is hella persistent she is not giving up and when she meets the author Nolan of the Orman Chronicles everything changes. Their love story and their bond is amazing! Nolan has tragedy come his way and so has Amelia, they bonded over their lost loved ones and found courage in eachother, oh my goodness so motivational! The Epilogue was amazing!

Thanks to Netgalley the author and the publishers for this gem! I can say for sure this is my fave book of the month so far!!!

This was my last read of 2020 and I couldn’t have ended the year on a better note. I absolutely loved this book. It was so beautifully written and I am honestly blown away by it! This story was sad but also full of hope. Amelia Unabridged is about friendship, grief, love and the power of stories.

The author does a flawless job discussing grief and how it is different for everyone. Amelia & Nolan’s stories are tragic. I definitely got teary eyed while reading. The heartbreak that both characters have is unimaginable, but together they learn that healing is possible.

The romance was oh so sweet. I was rooting for the couple the entire time. There was something about them that just worked. They were truly meant for each other...call it fate!

I adore that this book was all about books. The bookstore setting was dreamy. Like I honestly need a Val’s bookstore in my life. Amelia’s favorite book series is the Orman Chronicles and it sounds magical. The author put excerpts from the fictional books within this story and I found that so fun! I would 100% read the Orman books if they were real. My favorite part about Amelia Unabridged was that it shows just how important stories & books can be for someone. Not only can they be an escape, but they can also make people feel alive.

The friendships were incredible. Though we didn’t get to see Jenna for very long, her presence was felt throughout the entire book. I loved the parallels between Amelia & Jenna’s friendship and Alex & Nolan’s.

This book was everything I could have wanted, plus more! I cannot wait to get my hands on a finished copy. I need to have this on my bookshelf as soon as possible!

This book chewed me up and spit me out in the best way possible. I can’t remember the last time I felt a story in between my ribs, but this one did it. This will be a forever favourite.