Emmy And Oliver: Smooth Sailing Over A Rough Sea
Emmy and Oliver, written by Robin Benway, dives headfirst into choppy waters. Emmy and Oliver are best friends until they are seven years old, when Oliver disappears, kidnapped by his father.
Cut to ten years later. Emmy’s life is restricted by her parents’ fear and she has never stopped thinking about Oliver. Just as suddenly as he left, Oliver reappears and tries to settle back into life in his hometown. He finds it difficult, as everyone has grown up and moved on with their lives. Everyone but Emmy. Together, the two of them struggle to reconnect and rebuild the life that Oliver’s father destroyed.
This book was an absolute pleasure to read. In a market overflowing with young adult books about teen suicide and fatal illnesses, Emmy and Oliver distinguishes itself with its choice of an engaging new subject matter. The topic of parental kidnapping is a messy one. It’s emotional and difficult to create a realistic representation of it without seeming overdramatic. Benway, however, accepted the challenge and does a masterful job. Some scenes are mushy and emotional in the best way, while at other times I was constantly giggling while reading it. She captures the full range of human emotion and doesn’t avoid dealing with the sadness and anger that such a situation would create. She successfully creates a wholly realistic little universe.
Benway’s characters are witty, funny, and very relatable. In general, she does an excellent job of capturing the speech patterns and thought processes of teenagers. At times, the dialogue sounds a little too mature for seventeen-year-old kids, but the characters are so interesting that these slips don’t detract from the novel on the whole. Benway is the master of creating tiny, quirky details that make each character unique. For example, near the beginning of the novel, Emmy is always remembering how, on the day Oliver went missing, the tag was sticking up in the back of his shirt. This is what characterizes him until he reappears in her life and she spends a lot of her time wondering if anyone ever tucked it in. It’s these cool little details that make the characters so realistic and engaging.
This book is such a wonderful piece of young adult literature in so many ways. It finds that perfect medium between being too complicated for the audience to understand and feeling like it’s dumbing down the material. I loved reading it and I recommend that you do too. Benway is also the author of the Also Known As spy series or, if you’re into something more supernatural, try her book The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May, and June.