Review: Destiny, Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

Destiny, Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice
Hardcover, 176 pages
Expected publication: February 19th 2013 by Katherine Tegen Books
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Des·tin·y: |destinē/
(noun) The hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate.

Eleven-year-old Emily Elizabeth Davis has been told for her entire life that her destiny is to become a poet, just like her famous namesake, Emily Dickinson. But Emily doesn’t even really like poetry, and she has a secret career ambition that she suspects her English-professor mother will frown on. Then a seeming tragedy strikes: just after discovering that it contains an important family secret, she accidentally loses the special copy of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was given to her at birth. As Emily and her friends search for the lost book in used bookstores and thrift shops all across town, Emily’s understanding of destiny begins to unravel and then rewrite itself in a marvelous new way.

In her third novel, Kathryn Fitzmaurice again weaves a richly textured and delightful story about unexpected connections, about the ways that friends can help us see ourselves for who we truly are, and about the most perfect kinds of happy endings: those that happen just on time.

As the synopsis says, this book follows around a 6^th grade girl named Emily. She goes on quiet an adventure around town trying to find a book that was accidently given away. Her mother is almost what you would consider a hippy, but not quite. She fully believes in fate and if something doesn’t work right or something happens then that is what was supposed to happen. She doesn’t think Emily should go searching because then her fate will be messed up. Her mom named her after the poet Emily Dickenson and fully believes that it is her fate to become a poet like her namesake. Emily, however, doesn’t like poetry and is afraid what her mom will think of the job she does want.

Throughout the book Emily is trying to find her book so she will know who her father is. This isn’t really a spoiler, you find out pretty early in the book. She consistently writes letters to the author, Danielle Steele, about her life and sending the author happy endings she has written. I thought the letters where actually interesting and I liked reading those when I got to them.

This book was a little young for me. It follows around a young girl and therefore you get the thoughts and dialogue from a young girl. Some of the banter that happens between her and her friends goes on a little long for me but it does sound likes something a young girl would do. There is also a poem theme throughout the book. The class has an entire conversation in Haiku form and their friend Cecily Ann writes poems about everything.

I will admit that once I got a little more than halfway through I started to skim pages. It was not a bad book it was just too young for me I think. The chapters are short and easy to read for younger kids but I felt like the book was a little long for children that age. Maybe I just don’t remember what I read when I was that young. I did have an arc copy so I’m not sure what the actual copy will look like but my arc had over 330 pages.

Anyway, I recommend this for younger kids (girls will probably enjoy it the most).

 

My Rating:

 

*I received this book for review from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.