My Fan Playlist for Emmett
As a modern spin on Austen’s most “unlikeable” character, Emmett is complex (just like any great playlist). Sure, he doesn’t always make the best choices or have the most accurate insights into people’s love lives, but every song needs low notes to complement the high ones, and who among us is a perfect power ballad every day? Enough musical metaphors, on to the track list, where I did my best to capture the messy, romantic, perfectly imperfect essence of Emmett’s love story. Enjoy!!
★ “Rosen aptly carries [Jane] Austen’s torch… Delightfully queer and downright swoonworthy.” –Kirkus, starred review
★ “A smoothly written, highly readable—no, make that irresistible romance.” –Booklist, starred review
★ “A sensitive and affirming adaptation.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review
Emmett Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence and had lived nearly eighteen years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.
Emmett knows he’s blessed. And because of that, he tries to give back: from charity work to letting the often irritating Georgia sit at his table at lunch, he knows it’s important to be nice. And recently, he’s found a new way of giving back: matchmaking. He set up his best friend Taylor with her new boyfriend and it’s gone perfectly. So when his occasional friend-with-benefits Harrison starts saying he wants a boyfriend (something Emmett definitely does NOT want to be), he decides to try and find Harrison the perfect man at Highbury Academy.
Emmett’s childhood friend, Miles, thinks finding a boyfriend for a guy you sleep with is a bad idea. But Miles is straight, and Emmett says this is gay life – your friends, your lovers, your boyfriends – they all come from the same very small pool. That’s why Emmett doesn’t date – to keep things clean. He knows the human brain isn’t done developing until twenty-five, so any relationship he enters into before then would inevitably end in a breakup, in loss. And he’s seen what loss can do. His mother died four years ago and his Dad hasn’t been the same since.
But the lines Emmett tries to draw are more porous than he thinks, and as he tries to find Harrison the perfect match, he learns that gifted as he may be, maybe he has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to love.
Modern and very gay, with a charmingly conceited lead who is convinced he knows it all, and the occasional reference to the classic movie Clueless, Emmett brings you lush romance all while exploring the complexities of queer culture—where your lovers and friends are sometimes the same person, but the person you fall in love with might be a total surprise.