Songs About A Girl

Chris Russell

Flatiron Books

Release Date: May 30, 2017

Blurb from Goodreads:

Charlie Bloom never wanted to be ‘with the band’. She’s happiest out of the spotlight, behind her camera, unseen and unnoticed. But when she’s asked to take backstage photos for hot new boy band Fire&Lights, she can’t pass up the chance.

Catapulted into a world of paparazzi and backstage bickering, Charlie soon becomes caught between gorgeous but damaged frontman, Gabriel West, and his boy-next-door bandmate Olly Samson. Then, as the boys’ rivalry threatens to tear the band apart, Charlie stumbles upon a mind-blowing secret, hidden in the lyrics of their songs…

SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW

First off, if you’re a Goodreads user and have never tried their recommendation function, give it a go. I have discovered many (and a few less than) good books that way. You can set up the features to looks for particular genres. I, obviously, have “music” as one of the groups, which brings me to Songs About A Girl.

Most of Goodreads recommendations are for books already published so I hit Better World Books (a bookstore for used and new books; they also “donate books and fund literacy initiatives worldwide.” I feel getting books from them is a guilt-free experience despite the fact that there is no longer any room in this house for another book.) They didn’t have it. So I checked Amazon and saw that it will be published in May. So I clicked over to Netgalley, hoped that they might have it, ignore the fact that I’ve fallen behind in my reading and grant me Songs About A Girl.

And thank you, Flatiron Books for sending me an ARC!

As I came to Songs About A Girl I had a few misconceptions. First, I figured it was a New Adult. It isn’t it’s YA. Also, the band is a boyband. Lastly, I also figured it was American; oops, British. As I started reading, none of these things mattered.

Chris Russell’s story about a girl, Charlie, who likes to be in the background with her camera, taking pictures and observing the world through the lens, drew me right in. Despite the fact that she’s smart and usually a good kid, Charlie makes some rash decisions, but seeing that she’s a teenager, that’s not exactly extraordinary. When she comes to the attention of bullies and trolls, you feel her unhappiness although her way of dealing with it is to say she’s fine or okay. She is the type of person who empathizes with others even though she’s going through her own stuff. All of her interactions force her to evaluate herself and come to terms with the people around her, even when she thinks she’ll never be able to forgive them.

As the story evolves, the question of Charlie’s mother, who died in a car accident when she was a toddler, arises. Charlie has kept a scrapbook of her mother’s writings and suddenly she hears those words in the lyrics of Fire&Lights.

All of the characters are multi-dimensional, even the ones that initially come across as stereotypes.

This is definitely the kind of book you start reading and just don’t want to put down as evidenced by the fact that I stayed up until the wee hours and then decided that maybe the last quarter really could wait for the next morning.

Songs About A Girl ends with a cliffhanger, but it’s not the kind of cliffhanger that feels like it ends mid-sentence as some do.

I highly recommend Songs About A Girl. This is the kind of book that I really want to read when I pick up a book about rock/popstars. It has the magic of the performance and the charisma of people who make music, but it’s also extremely well written and intriguing.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

To preorder from Amazon: Songs About A Girl

rating: 

4 butterflies and a ladybug out of 5 butterflies