Destiny Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

Destiny is such an interesting subject. Whether it's destiny that brings two people together or the future that we are destined for. In Emily Elizabeth's case, her destiny was predetermined by her mother in the way that she named her after the famous poet Emily Dickinson. When your mom is an English-professor who writes greeting cards and loves poetry a nudge from her to follow in your footsteps seems obvious. Emily's mother even goes one step further by inscribing "Emily Dickinson is one of the great poets.  The same will be said of you one day."  Emily's mother also hides special dates, developmental stages and the name of Emily's father among the pages of the poetry book.  But Emily's passion lies with collecting happy endings and writing romance novels and letters to her favorite author Danielle Steele. Plus, Emily doesn't even get poetry.  So when Emily looses her special book, she is afraid that destiny is taking a terrible turn for her.  Emily, Wavey and cousin Mortie begin a desperate search through used bookstores and thrift stores to find her precious book.  Overall, I enjoyed the characters in the book.  I loved the interactions between Emily and Wavey, and cousin Mortie was hysterical.   Mortie wants to be in the military when he grows up, so he develops a plan for finding the book and puts it in Morse code.  He also performs reconnaissance as they go in search and is the overall backup. Although I could see how the story was going to end pretty early on, there was lots of humor in letters that Emily writes to Danielle Steele and in the situations that Emily, Wavey and Mortie find themselves in. The only person that I really didn't understand was Emily's mother and how she left Emily's finding her father to fate.  Not wanting to mess with or change Emily's fate by telling her his name.  A very good story that questions whether destiny is within our control or is it just up to chance.   My copy was from the public library.