Rowena’s review of Take a Bow by Elizabeth Eulberg.
Main Character: Emme, Ethan, Sophie, Carter
Love Interest: Ethan, Emme (highlight to see)
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
From the fantastic author of The Lonely Hearts Club and Prom & Prejudice comes a story of all the drama and comedy of four friends who grow into themselves at a performing arts high school.
Emme, Sophie, Ethan, and Carter are seniors at a performing arts school, getting ready for their Senior Showcase recital, where the pressure is on to appeal to colleges, dance academies, and professionals in show business. For Sophie, a singer, it’s been great to be friends with Emme, who composes songs for her, and to date Carter, soap opera heartthrob who gets plenty of press coverage. Emme and Ethan have been in a band together through all four years of school, but wonder if they could be more than just friends and bandmates. Carter has been acting since he was a baby, and isn’t sure how to admit that he’d rather paint than perform. The Senior Showcase is going to make or break each of the four, in a funny, touching, spectacular finale that only Elizabeth Eulberg could perform.
What a fun book this turned out to be!
I was a huge fan of the other two books by Eulberg that I read so I knew immediately upon finding out about this book that I had to have it. This is a really fast read (I read it all in one sitting) and another winner for me from Eulberg.
This book follows four students who get accepted to attend a performing arts school. There’s Emme and Sophie who have known each other since they were eight, there’s Ethan who was super shy and then grew into being the lead singer in his band and Carter, the child star who is all grown up and going back to high school to “perfect his craft”, too bad he doesn’t want to act anymore.
As you read this book, you get to know each character and you either love them to death or you hate their freaking guts. Lucky for me, I only hated one characters guts. The rest of them? Adored them.
My favorite character in this book is probably Emme. She’s nice. She’s talented and creative and she’s a good person. She wasn’t boring, she wasn’t plain looking, but she was shy and that was fine. I really liked seeing the way she was with everyone around her, the way that she wasn’t this popular queen bee but a down to earth everyday girl. She was genuine and she was likeable and I enjoyed getting to know her.
Ethan was another character that I enjoyed getting to know. He was so troubled and so intense. I wanted to fix him or at the very least, sing that Cold Play song to him. The way that he loved Emme from afar and tried to become a person who was worthy of her made my heart sigh and really, he was just full of awesome.
Carter was another enjoyable character. It was so good to see him find himself over the course of this book. Finding out what made him happy and getting rid of the toxic people in his life. At first, I thought he was going to be a love interest for Emme but I’m happy with the story arc that they gave him. You really see him come into his own, figure things out for his future and realize that there wasn’t anyone holding him back from going after what he wanted…but him. The steps he took to fix those mistakes had me captivated by him as a person and I just loved him to pieces.
There isn’t much to say about Sophie because she was such a toxic person, inside and out and I was thrilled when Emme finally saw her true colors. Fake people exist in this world and Sophie was one of the very worst users ever. The way that Ethan hated her was pretty much how I hated her and that kinship with Ethan made me love him all the more.
My favorite part of this book was the friendship between Ethan, Emme, Jack and Ben. So tight and so loyal. The way that your friends should always be. They have your back no matter what and that’s exactly how these guys were. They adored Emme, were protective of her and had her back no matter what. Same with Ethan. When he was being an ass, they called him out on it and they loved each other. Not everyone is lucky to have friends as awesome as these guys and it was such a treat to read about their friendship in this book.
This book is about a bunch of kids doing what they do best and trying to build a future for themselves. It wasn’t an easy journey but they each learned from each other and strived to do better each day. I loved the characters in this book, I loved the way this story unfolded and I loved the book as a whole. I definitely recommend this book. It’d make a perfect beach read.
…and that’s your scoop!
Buy the book: B&N|Amazon|Book Depository
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
Hi Rowena!
I loved Ms. Eulberg’s The Lonely Hearts Club , and this one sounds amazing too! The way you’ve described the characters really makes me want to read it 🙂
-Kirthi
Hi Kirthi! Thanks for stopping by. I really enjoyed this book, you should definitely read it.
*jumps with excitement*
I’m so happy you loved this book!
I loved the Lonely Hearts Club but Prada and Prejudice didn’t fare so well with me, so I was giving this a fifty-fifty chance that I’d read it.
But your review made it sound so awesome that I’m going to bump it up in the TBR pile!
😀
The characters sound great, though I already think I’m gonna hate Sophie. 😛
I really loved Carter in this book but Ethan annoyed me to no end which caused problems toward the end with the plot turns there. Overall I preferred Eulberg’s previous works-I guess I like one narrator more.
@Bookworm1858: Awww, you didn’t like Ethan? I got frustrated with him from time to time but I didn’t not like him. I was glad that he ended up with who he was supposed to be with even though at the beginning, I kind of wanted her with Carter.
@Alex: I did enjoy this book, it was another winner for me. I hope you like it as much as I did.