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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | TEEN FICTION MON | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The compelling heroine of Eve Marie Mont's acclaimed novel A Breath of Eyre returns to find truth and fiction merging through the pages of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter. . .
Emma Townsend is back at prestigious Lockwood Prep, but her world has altered immeasurably since her tumultuous sophomore year. The best change of all: her boyfriend, Gray. And though Gray is leaving for Coast Guard training, Emma feels newly optimistic, even if the pain of her mother's long-ago death still casts a shadow.
Yet Emma isn't the only one who's changed. Her friend and roommate, Michelle, is strangely remote, and old alliances are shifting in disconcerting ways. Soon Emma's long-distance relationship with Gray is straining under the pressure, and Emma wonders if she's cracking too. How else to explain the vivid dreams of Hester Prynne she's been having since she started reading The Scarlet Letter? Or the way she's found herself waking in the woods? As her life begins to echo events in the novel, Emma will be forced to choose between virtue and love. But can she forge a new future without breaking her heart?
"Richly satisfying. . .a smart and rewarding ode to literature." -- Kirkus on A Breath of Eyre (starred review)
Praise for A Breath of Eyre
"Exceptional and unique. . . A breath of fresh air for hungry readers looking for that special touch that makes a book stand out from the rest of the pack." -- The New York Journal of Books
"Bronte fans should appreciate this romantic, time-slipping reimagining that addresses finding a voice in writing and in life." -- Publishers Weekly
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-This sequel to A Breath of Eyre (Kensington, 2012) finds Emma, 17, returning to boarding school for her junior year after spending a summer with her boyfriend, Gray. He heads to Coast Guard training while she immerses herself in her neglected assigned reading, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Once she is back at school, Emma observes how much many of her friends have changed over the summer and struggles with maintaining a long-distance romance. When she kisses her roommate's boyfriend, Owen, and becomes the recipient of schoolwide scorn, her life begins to echo Hawthorne's novel. The heartbroken teen stumbles upon the world of Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl. She interacts with the characters and then returns to her reality, puzzled by what she has seen. References to the first book let readers know that this experience is not new to Emma; she has been sucked into literary realities before. Her visits into the 19th-century story continue, and she learns things about herself and her friends. This knowledge she needs as she deals with the fallout from kissing Owen, her uncertain relationship with Gray, and the gossip surrounding a girl at school who has discovered she's gay. Mature readers who are familiar with the literary references will have a greater appreciation of the conflicts and resolutions. Enough backstory is revealed to make this a stand-alone read.-Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Emma's adventures in literature continue in this smart, funny follow-up to A Breath of Eyre (2012) that will have readers hauling out their battered school copies of The Scarlet Letter for a second look. Emma is miserable when Gray breaks up with her not long after leaving for Coast Guard training. It's unfair to ask her to put her life on hold for a year, he explains. As Emma recovers her balance, she begins to appreciate her unwanted freedom while remaining unsure how to use it--she's still figuring out who she is. "Take risks. Make mistakes," her grandmother advises, and Emma does. Her new hairdo is a success, but after she's caught impulsively kissing roommate Michelle's boyfriend, she becomes a school pariah. "There is no place more hellish to a teenage girl in poor social standing than a high school cafeteria," Emma reflects. Repeatedly, via dream or trance state, she's transported back to Puritan New England, where she encounters someone who knows all about public humiliation: Hester Prynne. Though parallels drawn between Emma's life and Hawthorne's novel are nonlinear and intriguing, Mont takes fewer literary risks with primary sources here. Gray's more conventional, his edginess muted. It's Emma's identity--less crisis than quest--that matters. With help from her fictional role model Hester, it's an illuminating journey. (Fiction. 13 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The course of true love hits both the skids as well as the classics reading list in this steamy sequel to A Breath of Eyre (2012). Having benefited from falling into a Bronte novel in the previous episode, protagonist Emma finds involuntary excursions into The Scarlet Letter to likewise help mark her own progress through similar (but not rigidly parallel) tempests. These range from discovering the sexual secret that is torturing her prep-school roommate to getting a break-up letter from her hunky hon, Gray, and, on the rebound, being caught twice snogging other guys. Mont tucks music into her book (the author closes with an annotated playlist), mean girls who become friends, and an attempted protest of the school's antigay policies that evolves into an alternative prom. The author cranks up the heavy breathing, too, including a few visits to third base. She also brings events to an upbeat close for Emma with Gray back and repentant, and the dazzling prospect of an upcoming scholarship year overseas. Next stop: Paris and (hint) the Paris Opera.--Peters, John Copyright 2010 Booklist
