Emily Ever After

Emily Ever After

3.06 of 5 stars 3.06  ·  rating details  ·  439 ratings  ·  82 reviews
A quirky and quick-witted girl moves to Manhattan and holds on for dear life.

Emily Hinton needs out. She comes from a small town in California where the church handbell choir concert passes for a decent way to spend a Saturday and she’s known all the boys since kindergarten. She dreams of sophisticated people, love, and Louis Vuitton. When she lands a job at the world-famo...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published June 7th 2005 by Broadway
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 691)
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Emily
Aug 26, 2007 Emily rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: idiots, iealists with a religious bent, eleven year olds
Shelves: booksofthepast
Okay, let me first make a disclaimer. I am not a reader of chick-lit. I don't have a problem with those who are, but it's not really my genre. Why, then, did I read this book? Excellent question. I got it for a dollar at the library near where I work. In a moment of boredom I decided that it might be funny to read a book about a girl with my name working in Manhattan. Mostly I wanted the book for the cover, which I thought would be cute on my wall. I mean, I look like this girl, minus the emacia...more
Reshma
Nov 29, 2008 Reshma rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Christian young adults new to city life
Had no idea this was a "Christian" novel considering the description on the book jacket made no mention of it, however after the first chapter I knew there was something different about the book. I continued reading, deciding to give it a chance. It was definitely an easy, light-hearted read. As a New Yorker, I enjoyed the various references to the City and as a 20-something female, related to the main character. But as someone who is not Christian, the religious references definitely threw me f...more
Cathy Daniel
I am so torn on this book! Overall, very cute, fun, clean story. I love Christian Chick Lit. I love fun fluff! This book would have easily gotten 5 stars, but I had trouble with the drinking references and no, not what one might think. I don't have a real problem with characters in Christian fiction socially drinking (and like a previous reviewer stated the one time she did get drunk, she regretted it and it never happened again) but the problem I had was how acceptable and OK it was for them al...more
Valerie (Val's Vicinity)
After years dreaming of living in NY, small-town girl Emily Hinton's dreams are finally realized. She moves to New York, and even manages to get a decent job at a large NY publishing firm. Desperately wanting to fit in and concerned that her co-workers won't accept her beliefs, Emily doesn't mention her Christianity to them, and often goes along when they go out for after-work cocktails. Thrilled to find a cute Christian guy (Bennett) at work, they start dating, but somehow things don't seem qui...more
Sandra Lopez
Emily Hinton loves books and wants nothing more than to work with books and people who love them as much as she does. Her goal was to get out of her small California town and make her dream a reality someday. Finally, with the same fearsome drive of any college graduate, she packs up her things and trots off to New York, the book publishing capital of the world. You can’t help but love her determination.

In the beginning, it was easy to relate to Emily’s new-girl-in-the-city routine illustrated b...more
Nancy
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Corinne
Growing up in sunny California, Emily always knew that she belonged somewhere else: New York City. She finally makes her way to the streets of Manhattan when she lands a job at a big publishing house. Rarely does life live up to our fantasies, though, and between being across the country from her family, her crazy boss and trying to be true to her faith without seeming too different, Emily's new world is a big adjustment. Emily has a lot of lessons to learn about who she is and what she really w...more
Raili
This book was absolutely awful. I don't even know how it could be classified as a Christian book. It really opened up my eyes to how far the church and Christians have slipped over the years and it made me more aware that I need to stand up for what I believe in. There is one point in the novel where Emily is talking about how this guy is the perfect Christian guy because you wouldn't even know he was a Christian at first. Isn't one of the points of being a Christian for people to be able to tel...more
Nikki
I had no idea this was a "Christian novel" until I started reading it. There was no indication in any of the summaries I read on booksfree or Amazon. Now, I've read Christian novels before and liked them very much. But this one...well...
I felt like the main character didn't really have much in the way of personality. Her whole identity was I'M A CHRISTIAN. Really? What are you doing that's so Christianlike? All she seemed to do was be prim and prissy about things that really weren't a big deal....more
Kara
This was not at all what I was expecting. I thought it would be one of the many in the funny chick genre. It turns out it is a Christian book with a quirky main character who comes from a backwoods little town and wants to make a sophisticated life in Manhattan without compromising her values. It is funny, enlightening, and off beat. I would have loved it most likely if i had been set up for the type of book it was. The Christian overtones were not at all heavy.
I would recommend this to anyone...more
Kourtney
This book was not my cup of tea at all. This is Christian chick-lit, which I was unaware of when I started. Once I found out, I opened my mind as I am always looking for a new story to be told. The only problem with this one was the main character. Everything was about being Christian, only in the next sentence she would judge someone and make fun of them, or look down on them as being inferior. Not very "Christ-like"...I cannot stand reading that demeanor for fun. Where the book really lost me...more
Carly
Unfortunate. The idea of this book could have been so cute. It almost felt like there was some message the author wanted to get across, some story from her own life, a lesson she felt she had to share... but it didn't come across more than a "huh, she sounded like she wanted to say something... and used a whole lot of words NOT saying it." Ironically, the book could have used some major editing. Ironic because the main character, Emily, gets a job working at a publishing company as an editor's a...more
Mariah
I didn't realize this was a "Christian" book when I started it, but I was on a plane and had nothing else to read - and once I start a book it has to be really miserable for me not to finish it. It was actually pretty good. Typical chick lit, but with the added dimension of the main character struggling to stay true to herself and her beliefs while living in NYC. It wasn't preachy, except for a couple short places, and I found it interesting to see how "a Christian" (as she refers to herself) hi...more
Charlene
Emily leaves Jenks, a small town near San Diego, in search of a different life and to fulfill her dream of glitz, glamour, riches -- living in New York. She gets a job with a major publishing company and struggles to fit in -- despite her religious views.

As many chick-lit books, the main character changes who she thinks she is supposed to be. She buys expensive clothes, drinks, parties, and tries to find love. What was interesting about this book is that Emily quickly realizes what is important...more
Jen
It was refreshing to read a chick lit book with a Christian outlook, but the ending was SUCH a let down. The girl gets a promotion, starts to maybe even mature in her outlook and faith and she runs home to be with a guy? Really?!? When was this written, the 1950s? Yes, finding the love of your life is big, but so is finding a career you are passionate about and can actually make a difference in. I don't buy that the guy can't leave HIS home for HER'S.
It was a cute book overall, but none of the c...more
Melissa
I really loved the Book of Jane by this author, so was excited to read Emily Ever After. Sadly, I was really disappointed with this book.

There were a lot of things that I just didn't like about this book. First, they made Emily sound like a backwoods hick, and anyone NOT from New York a backwoods hick. Now granted, I know New York is a whole different world...but come on, just because we don't hail from the east coast doesn't mean that we are naive to the rest of the world.

Second, for someone wh...more
Kari Anderson
Emily has wanted to live in New York her whole life. The hustle and bustle of city, the glitz and glam, and of course the big editing jobs. But they’ve not really been attainable considering Emily lives in Jenks, California. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either, but apparently it’s about the size of my hometown, bite size.

Emily doesn’t get to follow her dream to New York in college, the money just isn’t there, but she bides her time and finally gets the opportunity as an assistant to a neurotic edi...more
Kelly
The main character, Emily, moves to NYC after graduating from San Diego State to fulfill her dream of living and working in NYC. She finds a job as an assistant at a publishing company. Emily really wants to fit it and find cool new friends, yet she wants to stay true to her Christian faith. Her new friends at work are not Christians, and seem both clueless about Christianity and almost antagonistic towards Christianity in general. But Emily still wants them to think she's cool, so she does not...more
Nola
Mar 26, 2008 Nola rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone looking for realistic Christian characters,
A young, single Christian leaves small town life behind to head off to the Big Apple and make her way in the world. Such is the premise of Emily Ever After, a novel by Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt.

Unlike most Christian literature, the authors have taken care to paint a more 'worldly' character. Thus, Emily (the protagonist) shuns many of the conservative Christian tasks, remaining tounge-in-cheek about them. She strives to live in the world without being of the world. Thus she is more likely t...more
Jen
8-31-07 at the moment, I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The pretty and interesting cover sucked me in. I'm about 2 chapters in, and I didn't realize it could be in a Christian bookstore. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christian fiction . . . but only when I'm EXPECTING it to be so! Plot devices thus far are a little obvious and seem like they're trying too hard. But we'll see how it goes!

9-1-07 ok, I'm done. The book ended just like I thought it would. The obvious plot devices combined with t...more
Denise
May 18, 2007 Denise rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: young romance readers; those who like books about Christians
I'll admit, I was biased from the start against the authors' (plural, there are two) focus on a Christian protagonist. I was raised Lutheran and have nothing against Christianity, I was just afraid it would make this book predictable. I was right.

No surprise here that the two authors work in the publishing industry. The whole book feels like a fill-in-the-blanks for a successful romance novel (except for the usual "sex on page 265" blank). I'm sure young (high school and college) Christian read...more
Shauna
Mar 19, 2007 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who loves chick-lit
On the surface, "Emily Ever After" seemed to be another tale of good girl gone bad in NYC. Fortunately, it turned out to be individual and completely different from any of the tales of New York I have read before. Emily struggles to fit in with the other assistants at work, and finds herself in places she'd never imagined she could ever be. She got laughed at when she ordered a Diet Coke on a night out, and tried to counter that by drinking too much at a book party, resulting in her first-ever h...more
Cindi
Though written as a "Christian" book, this story would appeal to any chick lit fan. It's kind of like a "Sex in the City" book without all the sex, drinking, and bad behavior. Okay, there is a little drinking. But these two authors make a great team and should be writing more!

Read more of my review at Examiner.com where I write about Christian fiction.

http://www.examiner.com/christian-fic...

Ally
This book was not good. It was poorly written, full of cliche, and put falling in love as more important that a promising position that the main character enjoyed and excelled at. Maybe I'm jaded, but every aspect of this book felt overly simplified, cheesy, and just plain silly. And the Christian aspect of it tried so hard to not be preachy, but still came across as judgy and preachy. Just awful.
Traci
plot was decent, but the characters seemed a little flat and cliche. also, the plot at times read like a blog or a letter, rather than a novel--sometimes it seemed like there was too much description of things that seemed unimportant to the plot. as was expected, the plot was predictable, but even when the story got to where you expected, it was rather anticlimactic.
Kate
As you may have noticed, I rarely review books on here- too lazy. However, must get the word out that this is, hands down, the worst book I have ever read. Horribly written, horribly edited, most absurd Christian overtones, offensive, misleading in its packaging, unrealistic, sloppy. I cannot say enough bad things about it.
Penny
The story seems very real to me, even though some of the characters are wacky. Emily finds her romantic vision of NYC challenged when she experiences the real thing, and she has to make a decision about how far she's willing to go to fit in.

It also has an unadvertised, non-preachy Christian angle, as one of the issues Emily has to grapple with is how to be true to her Christian faith around people who don't understand it. Her fun friends think she's a little weird for being a Christian, but when...more
Amandajustamanda
This was a terrible book! It is about a book editor and written by two book editors, yet the EDITING WAS TERRIBLE. Shift Tense, words left out, lines like "gazed into his eyes." UGH. The main character Emily--was stupid too. I hated her.
Yet, I read the whole thing. What a waste.
Laurel
Really liked the "Book of Jane", but "Emily Ever After" fell a little short. It had a really quick (read: unbelievable) romance, and I ended up being a little disappointed. Still had an pretty-enjoyable storyline, and was an easy read.
Amy
This was a fun, modern, light-hearted book that was so easy to read. I liked the real-life dilemmas Emily faced and her way of being able to eventually deal with them. If I could do half stars, it would be 3 1/2 stars.
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Emily Ever After (Paperback)
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