Amelia Unabridged

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of AMELIA UNABRIDGED by Ashley Schumacher in exchange for my honest review.***

Amelia and her best friend Jenna bond over a book series written by reclusive teen N E Endsley. After a rare argument, Jenna dies leaving Amelia lost and alone. Amelia travels to a small bookstore in Michigan on a quest to find more about a mysterious picture, never expecting to encounter the elusive Nolan Endsley.

AMELIA UNABRIDGED is a story about friendship, family, love, grief and living life for yourself. Ashley Schumacher’s gorgeous writing dances off the pages, with poetic word building that made me smile.

In the friendship, Amelia follows Jenna’s lead. Jenna’s enthusiasm and drive is matched by her parents’ financial generosity, taking Amelia along as part of the family. Caught up in the enthusiasm, Amelia barely considers her own preferences. After Jenna’s death, I cringed at her parents financial control, under the umbrella of love and subtle manipulation, borne of grief not malice.

Nolan is both enigmatic and infuriating, using his an anxiety as an excuse for rudeness. Beneath his frustrating exterior, a story he eventually shares.

I didn’t plan to read AMELIA UNABRIDGED in one sitting, but couldn’t help myself.

AMELIA UNABRIDGED is a must read for bibliophiles of all genres.

Amelia Unabridged feels like a classic in the making. Its story feels real and raw and has a particular richness to it I can't describe. It feels human. It feels like a book everyone can get something out of.

There's a certain magic to Amelia Unabridged that leaves me breathless and hopeful even when it makes me shed tears and feel my core tremble. Amelia is initially held together by her best friend, Jenna, who bond over their love for the Orman series, a book series that entails the magical journey of two sisters. When Jenna dies unexpectedly, Amelia feels her world unraveling and her only comfort comes in the form of a gift from Jenna: a limited edition of Orman that sends Amelia on a journey to find where the book came from.

Schumacher's descriptions are poignant and beautiful; she is able to make her sentences poetic while still making them feel like the thoughts of a girl who is entranced by novels. Her paragraphs aren't inordinate and, though they are easy to swallow, they still lie heavy in your heart.

The biggest strength of Amelia Unabridged is its messages about family and friends and how we must learn to embrace what we've lost and also let it go. Nolan, the author of the Orman series, perfectly matches Amelia and their relationship feels organic and precious. Even the side characters feel like true individuals and the weight of their own grievances still feel important and add to the story's messages about loss and love.

I feel this isn't done well all the time, but Schumacher also excels in creating a "book within a book" plot that feels real and even makes me want to read this Orman series. She doesn't give away too much information where we feel confused, but what she details heightens my curiosity for learning about the books. Schumacher exceeds in this sort of inception because she has a stunning ability to make everything feel relatable and remind you of the love you have for novels.

Incredible debut. The story may not be about going on an epic quest or being a harrowing hero, but it is exactly what it needs to be: a tale of losing someone you love and finding out how to move forward.

A few years ago, when Amelia's dad left, she was introduced to the Orman Chronicles by a semi-popular girl at her school, Jenna. After finishing the book, Amelia becomes completely obsessed with the Orman Chronicles and becomes best friends with Jenna who feels the same way about the book.

Now, the girls have just graduated high school. They attend a book festival - thanks to Jenna's rich parents = in hopes of being able to meet the young and elusive author of the Orman Chronicles, N. E. Endsley. After Jenna meets him and Amelia doesn't they have a huge fight, then a week later, Jenna is dead.

When a mysterious package comes for Amelia, it somehow leads her to N.E. Endsley. He isn't what you would expect a world famous author to be like.

I loved all the characters. Amelia, Nolan, Jenna and Nolan's best friend Alex and his mom. This book is so much than relationships that are just at a romance level, the friendships here are just as important. I also just loved the writing and Amelia's narration. I absolutely loved this book. I love books about books and authors, so I was definitely interested just from the synopsis.

**Review will be posted to goodreads and my blog one month before publication date.

Smiling from ear to ear, feeling the warmness in my heart, I could truly say: this is fascinating! The author’s way of telling how great novels can be life anchors to save us from great tragedies of life and how fill our hearts with true happiness. And the magically beautiful romance in this book, the innocence, genuineness of pure hearts of the characters widened my big smile. I’m absolutely happy to say this book is secret gem and I’m giving my five gazillion magical orman(forest)stars without thinking. I loved it so much!

Let me give you a short summary to inform you what’s happening in this promising, feel-good, heart warming, lovely story:

Amelia Griffin’s life has changed the day her father left the house for living with his young girlfriend and her mother cut her bonds with real life and turned into couch potato, giving full attention on TV reality shows instead of caring her daughter’s well being. The same day she befriends Jenna and slowly she becomes the fourth member of her caring, protective family. The girls form intimate and special bound and Amelia is saved by Orman Chronicles, getting lost in magical world of two sisters who are competing with each other winning the right to wear the crown. Jenna also shared her love of the series and both of them start finding similarities between them and those little sisters.

After their graduation, Jenna makes a big surprise to Amelia with book festival tickets where N.E.Endsley, young author (only 19) of Orman Chronicles will be attending as speaker of one of the panels. But the panel results in big disappointment for Amelia because her favorite author cancel his participation and during their travel to airport she finds out Jenna met with him and helped him relax throughout his panic attack process which pisses Amelia off. She feels like she’s been betrayed by her best friend. They had a big fight and as Jenna and she say goodbyes for Jenna’s Irish trip, they both feel sorry and startled. And yes, Jenna dies in a car accident in Ireland which completely breaks Amelia’s heart. She stop reading because she feels like if she opens a book she may betray the memory of her best friend.

She tries to heal her wounds till one day she gets a fateful post: a special addition of Orman Chronicles sent to her name. She thinks Jenna is involved with this surprise and she traces the bookstore where the book has been sent which takes her life changing journey and helps her meet with her favorite author. This special trip will help her discover herself, learn to deal with grief and find her soulmate but she needs to decide between realizing the wishes of death friend and taking risk and listening to her heart for seeing flying dolphins moving around the forest.

Overall: Well developed characters, fantasy and fairy tales vibes merging with emotional grief and second chances story stole my heart. I smiled and I cried at the same time. No more words: genuinely loved it! I love Nolan as a broken and poignant hero and I love loyalty and pure heart of Amelia! I loved their bookish, nerdish souls!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press / Wednesday Books for sharing this fantastic ARC with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Amelia Unabridged
A Novel
by Ashley Schumacher


St. Martin's Press
Wednesday Books
Teens & YA
Pub Date 16 Feb 2021



I am reviewing a copy of Amelia Unabridged through St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books and Netgalley:



Amelia Griffin is eighteen and obsessed with the Orman Chronicles. The series of books written by the young and reclusive prodigy N. E. Endsley. These are the books that brought Amelia and her best friend Jenna together after Amelia’s father left and her family imploded. When Amelia and Jenna are given the chance to attend attend a book festival with Endsley in attendance, Amelia is beyond excited about the opportunity. She feels this is the perfect way to spend the summer before she starts college.






In an instant though everything goes horribly wrong. Jenna gets to meet N.E Endsley and Jenna doesn’t , causing them to have a fight unlike any they had before. Before Amelia can mend things, Amelia receives a call from Jenna’s Mother telling her that Jenna was killed in a car accident. Amelia finds herself feeling guilty, grief stricken and questioning everything she had planned for college. Life looks different with her best friend.






After receiving a mysterious rare edition of the Orman Chronicles Amelia is convinced it somehow came from Jenna. After tracking the books to an obscure but enchanting bookstore in Michigan, Amelia is shocked to find herself face-to-face with the enigmatic and handsome N. E. Endsley himself, the reason for her fight with Jenna and perhaps the clue to tell Jenna all along.



In her beautiful debut Amelia Unabridged, by Amelia Schumacher, we learn about finding hope within ourselves and perhaps falling in love while you do it.



I give Amelia Unabridged Five out of five stars!



Happy Reading!

This is an amazing book and a joy to read. I don't want to give any spoilers and ruin the experience for anyone. It's a love letter to people who love books and one of the best explorations of grief I’ve ever read. The ending was wonderful and the last line was perfect!


Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3294462629

Amelia Unabridged || Ashley Schumacher
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A heart felt thank you for an ARC of Amelia Unabridged thanks to the publisher Wednesday Books through NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

Amelia Unabridged is the story every teen bibliophile craves. Schumacher writes with a style that truly amplifies a love of books, literature, series, and all bookish things. I can see so much or myself and my students in Amelia who loves books, seeks them for comfort, finds her best friend Jenna thanks to books, is content in friendship being a simple lounge and read in the company of each other, a way to travel to places without hurt and divorces, and a way to find love.

Amelia and Jenna meet at the local bookstore and become instant best friends bonding over their favorite book that takes them to the land of Orman. Amelia’s family has recently broken and Jenna’s family forever takes Amelia in. Their friendship blossoms to sisterhood and a second family for Amelia. During a book event Jenna accidentally meets their favorite author N.E. Endsley while Amelia is in the bathroom line. A week later Jenna dies in a tragic car crash before she can ever tell Amelia what her and Endsley talked about.

During her grief, Amelia cannot even pick up books let alone read them anymore. Reading and all things Orman are to harsh reminders of the glue that held her friendship to Jenna together. Then a book shows up at the local bookstore that Amelia knows has to be from Jenna. She decides to go to the bookshop that shipped it and see if she can learn what Jenna knew of this town and how she sent this book.

In Lou of giving out spoilers, let’s say that the rest of the story wraps you in Amelias journey of learning to live without Jenna by following whales, visiting the creation of the land of Orman, in snow globes, learning about finding yourself and your true purpose, dealing with grief and loss, and maybe even finding someone in her hardship of reading stories who says, “Let me give you stories.”

Amelia Unabridged made me fall in love with language and books again, excited to share literature with my students again, and crying conflicted tears of joy and sorrow.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of AMELIA UNABRIDGED by Ashley Schumacher in exchange for my honest review.***

It's hard to begin when my heart is so full I feel like an over stuffed bear. I read this in two sittings throughout one day and the only reason I had to set it down was because apparently, children need dinner and snuggles.

First of all, I love how best friends is one of the key elements in this story. But not your normal run-of-the-mill variety. No. I'm talking about the preordained destiny kind. Where you forge something stronger and deeper than friendship by constantly choosing that person over and over no matter what. Deciding they are part of your make up and permanently take up residence in your soul. I have one of those myself. She is a rare treasure that I will forever love unconditionally and I haven't found a friendship even close to ours in a long time. But Jenna and Amelia along with Nolan and Alex give us a run for our money. It was heart warming and felt like coming home. And this is just ONE SMALL SPECK of why I loved this book.

Having lived in both TX and MI I thoroughly enjoyed the setting of this story. I could relate to every adjective describing these places and felt it poke my nostalgic heartstrings. It felt like a walk down memory lane, especially the MI setting.

I'm no stranger to grief and loss so this delicately written story about the sweetest most poignant decisions when staring down the rest of your life made me feel seen. Like everything I've ever felt and gone through is valid. I love how intricately detailed Schumacher becomes when reminding us that stories and books are more valuable than we could ever imagine. They are gateways to worlds that can change us quite indefinitely.

There are so many quotable pages in this book, but I don't want to spoil it for you. This is a story that will sit with me forever and I'll reread it for many years to come. I can't wait to hand it to my children and let them find the wonder hiding within these pages. This is one of my top 5 favorite books I've ever read and that tells me that Schumacher will be forever an auto-buy author for me.

This book is for every girl who’s dreamed of meeting and falling in love with their favorite author. Hopefully that wasn’t just me!

When Amelia’s family falls apart, she’s staring into a bookstore window when Jenna sees her. Jenna pulls her into her happy life and family, and the two girls bond over their favorite books: The Orman Chronicles. The two girls plan to best friends forever, and sign up to be roommates at the same college.

As a graduation present, they travel to a convention to meet the legendary, reclusive author, N.E. Endsley. But only Jenna meets him when she bumps into him shortly before he cancels his scheduled appearance. Amelia is bitter, but when Jenna dies two weeks later in a car accident, Amelia’s world is ripped apart again.

When a mysterious limited-edition copy of the book arrives in the mail, Amelia is sure it’s a sign from Jenna. Following a clever wind, she tracks down the sender, finding the damaged N.E. Endsley himself. Do they recognize kindred hurting souls in each other? As Amelia learns more about him and how he built the world of Orman, she begins to doubt everything. Does Amelia still want to follow Jenna’s plan for her life or forge her own way?

This left me with tears in my eyes (the good kind) and a smile on my face. This book is like one giant hug for everyone who’s ever fallen in love with the world of a book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing this advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVED this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the opportunity to read a copy of this digital book. What a wonderful debut of a book with a gorgeous cover. The entire book's pacing and storyline was perfect. I found myself reading faster to find out more details and slowing down to take in and enjoy the moments/scenery being written. This definitely is a keeper in my digital & physical library to revisit again & again during those times you need a comfort read. I will be hand-selling to everyone of my family and friends who read to not miss this book.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this truly inspiring YA release. From the whimsical cover with its title that mirrors my own name for my book blog to the plot synopsis that left me breathless-- I had so many reasons to be deliriously excited about this debut. What I wasn't prepared for was exactly how much the story would mean to me. All through my life, books have been my escape. I know that, comparatively, my life has been very privileged and easy, but growing up is always painful to some degree. Losing myself in a story lessened that, as well as helped me form bonds with like-minded individuals. So too did this narrative begin; with a novel that formed the groundwork of the friendship that would change Amelia's life.

Our protagonist was looking for a way to leave her broken home behind for a bit as she stood in front of her local bookstore. A classmate of hers, Jenna, saw her through the window and recognized something in her. The two girls meandered the shop as Jenna picked up Amelia's broken pieces and handed her the gift of literature. They returned to Jenna's house that night physically, but the girls spent the night with their minds firmly planted in alternate universes spectacularly crafted by masters of the pen and page. This is when Amelia first visited Orman. 'The Forest Between the Sea and the Sky' resonated with Amelia in the way I'm sure any reader will recognize. We all have a book or a series that made us feel like anything was possible, like we were the heroes, and like we were seen and heard. The girls found their counterparts in the sisters written into the plot, and as their friendship blossomed throughout the years, so too did their fascination with the novel and its author, N. E. Endsley. When a plan to meet him goes awry, Amelia is left devastated, but soon learns the true meaning of the word. Jenna passes away, possibly leaving behind a mysterious copy of a book that shouldn't exist, and Amelia follows the trail to put her friend to rest. What she doesn't count on, however, is finding herself in the process. Against all odds this search leads her to Nolan, the boy behind N. E. Endsley. He is quiet, scared, and broken like her. The more she finds out about him and the Michigan town she's spirited herself away to, the more alive she feels for the first time since Jenna left her side.

There are so many things that I love about this book that I don't know where to start. Amelia is such a strong and relatable character, and I felt her pain as my own while she is suddenly loosened from the bonds that held her firmly to earth and seems to be floating aimlessly. Jenna was her rock; having taken Amelia into her family and planning both of their lives. It's mostly the latter that haunts Amelia; and the look at just how damaging others' expectations of you can be is so sobering. Not only does she want to honor the memory of her friend, but she doesn't want to upset Jenna's grieving parents even more than they already are, even if it means losing herself in the process. Nolan shows us how trauma effects someone long term, and it is painful, unpredictable, and easier when shared with others. The town of Lochbrook is incredibly charming, housing an exciting array of personalities from Wally, the bumbling horse of a dog to the spitfire piano teacher, Valerie. It would be a fairytale setting if not for the air of tragedy that surrounds it. Despite that, you can feel a clear change between the crowded and memory-ridden streets of Dallas and the whale-streaked skies of Lochbrook. It's like the world goes from grey to technicolor as Amelia realizes she may have reached Orman after all.

Speaking of Orman, I always admire authors for creating a book within a book, and the lore included for this fictional narrative is intriguing and lovely; something I can see myself picking up in real life. I am head over heels for how the story was a vehicle for so much positive change in this world. Ashley Schumacher really shows off how much magic a novel holds. It has the power to bring you to tears, to mend your heart, to make you smile-- all from words on a page. She knows that it is up to the readers to use those words, and that they will interpret them however they need them at that moment. So, as Amelia's life turns from the fantasy she imagined, she begins to write an autobiography instead. It's hard work, but she finds her way to living for herself, which I think is a huge message for readers of all ages. This book will remind you to keep that spark alive within yourself; the one that says 'I am, I am, I am' with beautiful imagery and chapters that are so easily devoured I could have finished it in one night. However, like Nolan, I despise endings, so I was loathe to let this one go. Just like in life, though, all things come to an end, and I am a more hopeful soul after having been touched by this poignant story of love and life.

I received an ARC of AMELIA UNABRIDGED thanks to the publisher through NetGalley.

I just finished reading the epilogue and I’m still teary-eyed. Amelia and Nolan’s story was a pure pleasure to read that I couldn’t put it down. I ended up succumbing to exhaustion reading it at 2 AM and I can’t tell if I happy to have had more time living without completing this book or wishing I had a late night cup of coffee with Wally to finish it. I guess both and neither at the same time.

AMELIA UNABRIDGED follows Amelia on her journey of grieving and finding herself after the death of someone she was incredibly close to. One thing leads to another and the ‘ghost’ sends her on an emotion packed adventure to a bookstore in Michigan where she discovers her idol. But because life isn’t simple, he is infuriating and broken and so much like her.

I cannot say enough about how wonderful this story is! It is bookish and fantastical and swoony. The cover should absolutely be the entrance to Orman because it is the only thing that could represent this book in one image. The current cover is wonderful, but gives an air of 13 Reasons Why rather than A Light Between Worlds meets Starry Eyes. Although that really doesn’t capture it.

Tackles mental illness and grief in a wonderfully heartwarming way. Definitely going to have a book hangover! If I could give 6 stars I would!

Amelia Unabridged is a delight for book lovers. I felt an instant connection to Amelia. She is bookish, a photographer, and lost in a sea of grief after losing her best friend in a tragic accident. Serendipity takes her on a life-altering trip that begins in the most magical bookstore I’ve ever had the delight of imagining. I want Val’s to be a real place!

I loved this novel and can’t wait to purchase a copy for my teen daughter once it’s released,

This is a book for best friends. For book lovers. For those that know the power books have in changing your life. And for those who have yet to experience this magic.

This is a book that has everything - broken-hearted boys and silly dogs and strong coffee and pinky promises and rain clouds and whales that swim through the trees and so much heart.

This is a book that has the power to turn non readers into readers and cynics into believers. I could not have loved this book more, and I can't wait to read it again. And again.