"What Would Emma Do?: To kiss, or not to kiss? That's one of the questions. "

by Eileen Cook

[Raven]

Read this and other reviews at my blog.

Emma has made the worst mistake you can make, she kissed her best friend's boyfriend, Colin. To make it worse, she lives in a small town, so she runs the risk of everyone knowing about it. Somehow the kiss keeps quiet, but now her best friend doesn't trust her, the boy is ignoring her, and Emma is feeling awful. When scandal breaks out in the town, and only Emma and Colin know the truth, she must decide what is worth giving up to save someone else. With so many people in town asking what Jesus would do, she discovers it's time to start asking what she should do instead, and live her own life.

This book kind of disappointed me. Alright, so it's obvious from the title alone that this was going to have religious themes. That is fine, I set myself up for that. I wasn't expecting, but I certainly didn't miss all the hinted relation to The Crucible. The town Emma lives in, is one of those highly religious small towns that tend to get a little carried away by their faith. They like to bring their faith into everything, even places it doesn't really need to be focused on, and anyone who questions it is singled out and shunned.

The characters were a little lacking. Emma was decently fleshed out, but the other characters didn't feel real enough to me. A few of them, like Colin, I thought was going to have more role to play in the story and then he was hardly around. I guess in a way it make sense, but the whole thing felt off to me. Sure, I flew through the pages to see what happened next, but I wasn't compelled to keep reading.

The plot was off from the summary. There was so little to do with having kissed Colin that it felt like the summary was stretching it. I was really disappointed in the lack of romance. Being a book with religious tones does not mean you have to skip on the love. Aside from a few kisses, there was nothing. Even the crush Emma develops seems silly. This was one of those books that I felt like, the summary was pulled from the things far off on the side. Or maybe it was written before the book was finished and never changed to make up for the fact that the book took a completely different direction.

While I was reading through, I kept flashing back to my youth when I was sitting around reading Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I feel like this would be a great book for a younger crowd who is fans of that one. This wasn't a bad book, it just didn't click with me.