Emily For Real (PDF)

Emily is quickly learning that life isn’t simple. A failed romance and scandalous family revelations have shaken her to the core. But a new friendship with her classmate Leo is her saving grace and they give each other the courage to face life’s challenges head on.If it’s just him, I cut a clean diagonal right across the middle, letting one half fall dead on the bed and throwing the other half on top of the pile. If it’s a picture of him with me, I carefully slice him off, and for some reason I save the piece with me in it. After a while, there’s a pile of Brian corpses lying there staring at nothing, and the pages of my album are all patched up with slices and triangles and scraps of pictures of me.In every one of these sliced-up pictures, I look stranded.Seventeen-year-old Emily’s world crumbles when her boyfriend dumps her, and when she thinks her life can’t possibly get any worse, a series of secrets are revealed that threaten to tear her beloved family apart. Emily’s heart has been broken into a hundred pieces and she feels like there is no one to turn to, until an unexpected friendship blossoms with a troubled classmate named Leo. Sometimes moody but always supportive, Leo is Emily’s rock in an ocean of confusion and disbelief. But Leo doesn’t have an easy life either. He struggles to be both mother and father to his little sister while his mom battles her alcohol addiction. His deadbeat dad darts in and out of the picture, and Leo would rather he stay away,Permanently. The two friends lean on each other, and in the end discover the inner strength to face whatever life throws at them.With incredible insight into the teenage psyche and speckled with pitch-perfect humor, author Sylvia Gunnery has created a heart-warming coming-of-age story that explores the intricacies of family and friendship.