Editing Emma by Chloe Seager

Rating:

Published: 10th August 2017

Publisher: HQ

Pages: 368

Synopsis from Goodreads: When sixteen-year-old Emma Nash is ‘ghosted’ by the love of her life Leon Naylor, she does what any normal teenage girl would do…

Emma spends the summer lurking in her bedroom, avoiding all human contact (and the shower), surrounded by the collection of chewit wrappers she saved from packs Leon gave her, back when he actually acknowledged her existence…
But seeing Leon suddenly ‘In a relationship’ on Facebook with the perfect Anna, spurs Emma into action and she embarks on a mission to make positive changes to her life (or ‘edits,’ if you will) and vows to use the internet for more than obsessively stalking Leon’s activities! Instead, she will use it for good and noble causes like finding someone who will actually be nice to her, and recording her findings for the rest of the world to see (i.e. BFF Steph and her mum) on her new Editing Emma blog.
But Emma soon discovers her ‘habit’ is harder to break than she first thought – turns out she’s not the only one ‘editing’ herself online (thank you Tinder for finding her mum’s profile, age 35, really?) and that life through an Instagram filter isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. But it could be worse, she could have outed her best friend, accidentally chatted up a 12 year old boy and revealed to the world why Leon Naylor is worth no girl’s time or virginity… oh no wait, that’s exactly what happened…

Big thanks to HQ and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book for review!

I was interested in Editing Emma from the start because I had heard it being compared to Louise Rennison's series which I LOVED and which will always be one of my favourite things to read ever- I owe my love of books partially to her, but I'm digressing. Editing Emma was certainly deserving of this comparison! It's narrative which is told mostly through blog posts is very reminiscent of Georgia Nicolson and it also gave the same easy reading, you-could-read-it-in-an-afternoon sort of vibes which is just wonderful.

Emma is a teenager who's determined to become this new version of herself who is more successful when it comes to dating and general life after a guy completely ignores her when they were meant to be a couple. Emma starts a blog to document the changes she's making, it's brutally honest and hides nothing- it's the only YA book I've read that really talks about masturbation and how like that's a thing that girls do too, and in that way it's super important in helping teens to feel like they're not abnormal for doing such a thing. The book perfectly captures what it's like to be a 16 year old girl and it captures a level of relatable honesty that I only rarely see in books, so I loved it!

It occurred to me as I was reading that I am really not much very much like Emma (putting that largely down to her being very sex positive and me being the opposite, but that's cool) and that's the reason I've not given this a full five bees, just because at times I personally couldn't relate. Despite this I did find it really refreshing to read something that really shows what a group of teen girls are like? They're not all perfect and getting in successful relationships from young ages etc and that's just, truthful, I guess!

Overall Editing Emma is a fab book that I would truly recommend to anyone who is missing their Georgia Nicolson hits. It's hilarious, it's honest and it's just all round good fun.

Have you read Editing Emma? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Mental Health Mondays #10 : Showing emotion?

This week I'm talking about a somewhat mental health related topic, but also something which I think everyone has probably experienced and which occurred to me recently is not something that should be an issue but is, so I'm sticking it into a MHM because I can do what I want 😜

Anyway what I want to say is this... CRYING IS NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS AND YOU ARE JUST AS STRONG WHETHER YOU CRY OR NOT!!! 

Firstly, I am not someone who cries a lot at all. In many ways I actually find this difficult because I end up looking for other less positive ways to express my upset and emotion. A few weeks ago I was chatting to a friend who'd had a tough day and she was feeling bad because she had, as she told me, cried three times throughout the day. It made me think about how there is NOTHING wrong with crying yet, it's almost like, frowned upon as a sign of weakness? But it's not like you can really stop it at all so now I'm all why, society, WHYYY???

It's not even worth me starting on how much more of an issue this kind of thing is amongst guys and how men crying is seen to be something bad. I just don't get it?! You don't find people apologising and feeling bad for laughing at something that makes them happy so why should it be the opposite for a different emotion?

Mostly this short post had been a way for me to get out my feelings on the matter but I'm also interested to hear what you think about it and whether you agree with me because everyone's different - some people cry at everything, some not at all - but that's not a representation of how strong a person is in character? It's just a difference so why should people feel like they're weak because of such a thing?! It's a healthy reaction!

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts, are you a big crier or are you like me? Do you agree with what I'm saying? And don't forget to leave questions in my question box for me to answer!

Introducing... a new review rating scale

It's been on my mind for some time now that I've been using a simple x/10 rating since I started my blog over a year ago, which has been kind of boring me so now it's time for a change! A cute, yellow, change.

This is just a quick post really to let everyone know that from now on I'll be scoring books etc out of five and including half scores rather than going up to 10,. I shall also now be scoring with BEES!!

I'm super excited as bees are The Best and they're going to brighten up my blog so much so look out for buzzy fellows in future...

They're so cute right!?! I hope you all like bees because if not you should change your opinions because they're super duper important, but that's a long old ramble for a different day! Anyway this has been an announcement, thanks for reading!

Mental Health Mondays #9 : Watch Your Words Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of my Watch Your Words series, this will be the last post in this series for now but I may well come back to it in the future. As always these are just my thoughts and I'm speaking from experience but everyone is different so don't take what I say as fact.

☆☀☆

This week's phrase is...

"_____ just gave me a panic attack..."

Before I get started on this just let me explain that I'm not trying to say that panic attacks aren't real nor am I suggesting that they can't be triggered by anything in your environment, this is about using the term panic attack to describe something which, quite simply, is not one.

Mental Health Mondays #8 : Watch Your Words Part 2

Check out Part 1 of this series here where I complain about misuse of the term "mental breakdown" and explain a bit more about the idea of this short series of posts. These are my views and as much as I try I may not be 100% accurate in what I say so please bear this in mind when you're reading.

☆☀☆

The phrase this week is:

"OMG _____ is so OCD"

Okay now this is a big one. It's one of those phrases which seems to be so commonly used by so many people and yet it's the worst.

Introducing... Mental Health Monday's Question Box

Welcome to a quick MHM-but-not-on-a-Monday post, introducing and explaining my brand new Question Box. It's nothing too fancy but I'm really hoping that it'll be successful as it will really help me to tailor future posts to make sure I'm chatting about stuff everyone's interested in.

The aim of this Question Box is to give anyone who reads a Mental Health Mondays post the chance to feedback and get a bit of advice or have a question answered which they're too scared to ask publicly.

The Box itself looks like this...

... and the idea is you put in your question and depending on whether or not you leave contact details for me either you'll hear from me or your question will pop up in a future MHM Q&A session which I'm hoping to introduce on a semi-regular basis.

In order for any of this to work however I need you my readers and chums to be bold and just put yo' questions in that box! It can be any question on any mental health related topic, based on your experience, on something you've seen or something I've written - basically whatever you want because it's all important!

By no means am I trying to say that I have all the answers and there are some areas I won't have enough experience of answer myself but I'm willing to try and find others who can help if possible. My aim really is just to emphasise how important it is that we discuss all MH related things and help to destroy peoples' misconceptions.

So this is my shiny new Question Box, please take time to have a think about whether there's anything you'd like to submit as a question and click here to submit it!  I'm nervous about posting this as I'm not sure how successful it will be but I'm hoping that I'll get at least a couple of questions as anything will help me know what to post about in the future!

Thanks for reading, I'm going to be super cheeky and ask that if you agree with what I'm doing and think it's a good idea that perhaps you'll share this post or the link to the question box on your social media to help me get as many responses as possible... ☺️

Mental Health Mondays #7 : Watch Your Words Part 1

This is the first in what will probably be a three part series of posts, each focussing on a commonly used phrase which may be upset those who suffer from mental health issues. Such phrases often add to the negative stigma of mental illness and/or make those who suffer feel invalidated and uncomfortable. As always these are my views and I try and make sure what I say is as well informed as possible but to a certain degree this is my own interpretation from my experience.

☆☀☆

The phrase this week is:

"The other day _____ caused me to have a mental breakdown..."

This is something I have heard very regularly amongst my friends/acquaintances and it appears to be used to basically mean "this person upset me and I cried". So let me explain to you a little thing about what a mental breakdown actually is: mental or nervous breakdown is defined as a period of intense mental distress where you can't function in your normal day to day life; your symptoms are basically so intense (both the mental and physical) that it stops you from being able to continue doing what you were doing. This is not the same as when your bf dumps you and you cry and are generally sad and don't feel up to getting out of bed for the rest of the day because the latter is a perfectly acceptable and understandable response to the given situation whilst a breakdown can (not always but sometimes) be caused by something small or may have no obvious cause at all.