Book Review: JUST EMILIA
Thank you to Regal House Publishing for sending a copy of Just Emilia in exchange for an honest review.
TW: ageism, alcohol/alcoholism, car accident, death of a parent, fatphobia, grief, sexual assault, suicidal thoughts.
Three women are trapped in an elevator, but soon their confines become the least of their problems in Just Emilia . There's something connecting teenager Em, middle-aged Emilia, and elderly Millie, which goes beyond the obvious. Over the course of many hours, they attempt to unravel the truth behind their shared past trauma and decipher ways to make a difference in their lives. About Just Emilia by Jennifer Oko
It's October 12 in Washington, DC. An ordinary day for many, but not for Emilia. Today is a struggle, and it's heightened by how fraught her relationship with her husband Joel has become. Surely, some retail therapy will lighten her mood.
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While the shopping trip is fun, what follows for Emilia is decidedly not. She rushes to catch the elevator in the Friendship Heights Metro, only for it to abruptly shut down. Trapped in this cage, Emilia attempts to make conversation with her two companions.
She's eventually able to coax them into conversation, which is when they learn the first of many oddities about their situation. All three of them are named Emilia, but they go by different iterations of the name.
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Young Em is a troubled teen, combating suicidal thoughts, while Millie is in her seventies and devastated by the breakdown in her relationship with her daughter Sonya. Emilia's marriage is on the rocks, mainly because she's still haunted by the death of her mother, the famous local TV personality Sally Fletcher.
As the three women reveal more about themselves, they figure out that they aren't three random Emilias coincidentally trapped in an elevator. They're the same Emilia, at different ages during her life. A Quick Read, But Not a Perfect One
Just Emilia is a swift read, like a brisk walk down the DC streets that are vividly described in the book. Where it falls flat is in substance. We know more about the roads the three Emilias travel than the personal journeys they undertake.
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There's a lot of telling, not enough showing. We don't feel the grit and grime of a public elevator or the closed confines of the area they're stuck in. There's only one scene when the characters must, embarrassingly, deal with natural bodily functions. After that, it seems their bodies turn to stone. Are they hungry, dehydrated or frustrated?
Author Jennifer Oko also gives little page time to Millie. Instead, there are far too many barbs directed at her appearance. Millie's choice to indulge in cosmetic surgery may be questionable, but Emilia and Em act like they've never seen an older woman before. Worse, they're disgusted by such a figure. People age. And Millie's only in her seventies. Speculative Fiction-Turned Therapy Session
The central plot device in Oko's novel is the time-traveling elevator, but the heart of the story is grief, and the characters' complicated feelings around it. Grief doesn't just cast a pall on Emilia's life; it defines her. Even when she's convinced herself otherwise.
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Emilia's grief is complex – as grief tends to be – and has additional layers of guilt, which is complicated by her strained relationship with her mother. She's carrying a burden that no one else will accept or even listen to, which leads to Emilia being stuck in life. The only way to get unstuck is by being literally stuck in an elevator.
While Oko deftly handles how grief doesn't have an expiry date, she does attempt to shoehorn an 'easy answer' to grief, which is not necessarily realistic. But Just Emilia could be a cathartic read for many dealing with their own grief surrounding a loved one.
Just Emilia comes out on June 10 and is available to pre-order on Bookshop.org.
Movie Review: THE UNINVITED Monita has been championing diversity, inclusivity, and representation in entertainment media through her work for over a decade. She is a contributor at Bam Smack Pow, and her bylines have appeared on 3-time Eisner Award-winning publication Women Write About Comics, Geek Girl Authority, HuffPost, Reactormag.com (formerly tor.com), Soundsphere/Screensphere, FanSided's Show Snob, and Vocal. She was also a TV/Movies features writer at Collider.com. Alongside her twin, Monita co-hosts the pop culture podcast Stereo Geeks.
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