Destiny Rewritten has been on my TBR since 2013. Seriously. My mom surprised me with it one day last year and it ended up being a DNF – as in, “Did Not Finish.” I finally finished it last week, though, and loved it!
Title: Destiny, Rewritten
Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction, ages 9-12 (according to Kirkus Reviews)
Length: 335 pages
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (February 19th, 2013)
Source: bought!
Blurb: 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, just after discovering that it contains an important family secret, she loses the special volume 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.
Where to begin with this book? Okay, so first thing’s first. The characters. They came a long way. And, by the end of the book, I felt like I had come a long way, too. It was a short read, and yet I felt like the character development was very well written – which is rare for such a short book. I was really surprised by the end of the book how subtly the characters had changed, yet how much they had, indeed, changed, overtime. That’s a fantastic quality in a book, and I loved it!
Another thing that’s really awesome about this MG read – I feel like anyone can relate to the MC, Emily. (Well, I definitely can! Ha… ha…)
She’s grown up expected to be a poet one day, her destiny written in a first edition book of Emily Dickinson poems. The thing is, Emily even doesn’t want to be a poet. She doesn’t even understand poetry – and she definitely isn’t good at writing it. I think many people, of all ages, can understand where eleven-year-old-Emily is coming from. At some point in their lives, a person is going to face not being able to live up to other people’s expectations of themselves – whether you’re 11, or 20, or 30, or 72.
One thing I didn’t like in this book was that sometimes the writing could be very vague… I stumbled over this passage while I was reading it because I didn’t understand who “them” was. Check this out:
“Are you sure?” I said. You won’t get your attendance award this year if you do.” I imagined them ripping it in half and throwing it in the trash as we spoke.
– Chapter Fourteen of Destiny Rewritten, page 96
What do you all think? Is that being too picky of me? It’s up to you, but when I first read that I was slightly confused since there had been no mention of “them,” though it’s understood it’s of teachers or principals since the girl is missing school.
Now, the ending. It’s the sort you see coming from the very beginning, but you smile and tear up anyway. I was very happy with the way things ended, and even though I knew what was going to happen, in the end, I didn’t mind it so much because, as I said before, the book’s characters changed so much, and went through so much, they deserved a happy ending.
Overall, I really liked this book. There were some flaws, but it was a good book – for a total of three stars.
What do you think of the book? Am I being too persnickety about that part of the book? Would you like to read it?
