Clean Break

Author- Jacqueline Wilson

Protagonist- Emily (Em, Emerald)

Number of pages- 302

Let’s get started-

It was going to be the best Christmas ever…

That’s what Emerald thought, when she woke up on Christmas day. She didn’t want to wake her parents up until it was a little late, because it was a holiday, and parents LIKE to wake up late on holidays.

But Vita, Em’s little sister, doesn’t want that. Neither does Maxie, their brother.

And then starts another day in their family. It’s a really happy, together-till-the-end kind of family.

Well, it was. Up until today, Christmas Day.

***

Excerpt-

“Oh darling, darling, darling,” he said.

I thought he was talking to me. Then I saw the hunch of his shoulders, his hand up against his ear. He was talking on his mobile.

“Yeah, yeah! Oh Sarah, I’m missing you so much too,” he said. “Still, I can’t get out of Christmas, it means so much to Julie and the kids. I’m trying to make it happy for them, though dear God it’s such an effort now. Still, I’m planning on telling them soon. I can’t stay much longer.”

“Don’t leave us, Dad!”

 

***

Then comes in the twist. Sarah. This woman doesn’t really care about anything other than her ‘luxurious life’ (which, I’m telling you, is not luxurious at all. Like, she stays in a small flat on top of a GROCERY STORE, with the staircases all smelly and disgusting). Em’s Dad is ready to leave them, but a part of his heart is still left in their house.

Then there’s Julie, Em’s Mum. She cannot cope with the change, cannot handle the fact that Frankie (Em’s Dad) is going to leave them. Forever. And on Christmas Day too, for God’s sake!

Em’s Dad tries to keep in touch for a few days, calling them up and taking to kids out to amusement parks and all that fancy stuff. But then, on one trip, he takes them to his ‘home’. (The stinky cellar-like structure, which is actually Sarah’s adobe).

Em doesn’t like Sarah at all. Sarah doesn’t care about Em at all. It’s mutual hatred. But Em’s Dad doesn’t want to leave Sarah, because he ‘loves her’ (Em’s Gran says that for Frankie, the word ‘love’ doesn’t have any meaning, so…)

Then the famous Jenna Williams releases her book called ‘The Emerald Sisters.’ Em really wants that book, one because it’s based on her name, and two, because her Dad always called her ‘His Princess Emerald.’ He even brought her an emerald ring!

She goes to London for that, meets with an accident because of her Dad, and her Dad tells her that he’s broken up with Sarah, and now is with Hannah instead (Goodness sake).  Then something unexpected happens.

He wants to come back to Em and her Mum. But Julie wants a clean break. She leaves him hanging, not giving him a proper answer, just a vague on-the-edge, ‘We need to go home.’

Christmas is here again. One year passed since their clean break, and Em’s father didn’t come back.

But then, they hear a ‘Ho,ho,ho’, coming from outside the hall.

Maybe, just maybe, it will be the best Christmas of Em’s life.

Can you guess why? c:

Just one spoiler-   Em's Gran gets has a secret admirer, named Eddie (HAHAHAHA)

Brownie points- 5 out of 5 brownies. Really, this book was extraordinarily touching, and even the smallest bits where Em meets her Dad, or talks to her friends about him, are thoroughly explained and defined. I love this book. 

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