A Little Wanting Song

3.5 stars ( )

Very, very nice. The characters and situations were made very real and I was very absorbed into their lives and emotions. This is among the best coming-of-age novels I've read. As with the others of the genre that I've liked a lot, it's more the writing of the characters than it is the story, I think, that really makes it what it is. If this stays with me long enough I may have to come back and add the fifth star. I'm looking forward to Graffiti Moon. ( )

“We were the only three people awake in a world half asleep and the air felt heavy with maybe.”

The Aussies hit it out of the park again. Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder if there is something in the water down under that allows them to produce amazing YA lit. (or maybe all of it is put through a strainer and only the best of the best is published in the US—either way, I haven’t read a bad Aussie YA book yet) And I can’t wait to get my grubby hands on [b:Graffiti Moon|7863274|Graffiti Moon|Cath Crowley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1279318277s/7863274.jpg|11018320].

Charlotte (Charlie) Duskin has been going to stay in her grandparents’ town every summer since she was young. Though she lost her mother several years earlier, her grandmother recently passed away and her father and grandfather are still mourning their losses. Charlie always saw Rose, Dave, and Luke playing around town but was never a part of their fun. Before she left the city for the summer, she had a huge fight with her best friend and was embarrassed in front of tons of her peers. She’s looking for an escape.

Rose Butler feels stuck. She’s lived in the same small town forever and, though she loves her family and her two best friends, she wants to go to school in the city. After taking an entry exam and winning a scholarship, her summer plan is to befriend Charlie Duskin and then return to stay with her family so she can attend the school. Only no one knows about Rose’s plan…and there’s that lovely hump of an entire childhood of being a total jerk to get over.

This author takes several of my pet peeves and then serves them back to me on a silver platter. And they tasted like enchiladas….mmm, enchiladas. We’ve got shifting narrators—usually, this is a major buzzkill for me but I smiled over and over when the author replayed the same conversation from the other side. And a musical theme—I usually tire of that after a chapter or two. I get it, you like the GD guitar. Here, it was endearing. Charlie’s personality and the song lyrics (which are interspersed in the text) are just lovely. I especially loved her snark—“tell anyone who doesn’t like it to shove it up their arse.”

When it comes down to it, this book is between 4 and 5 stars for me but I'm feeling especially happy after reading it so BAM! 5 stars it is.

Thanks to Nic for running the Aussie YA Challenge and introducing me to all kinds of awesomeness. And thanks to Jess, for picking it as my TBR Challenge read!
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I didn't love the book, but I did love that it was a library book from Overdrive that I didn't have to wait for! ( )

"I've got stars in my blood, burning bright under my skin."

I really liked it, let me just say that first. The whole story was bittersweet and moving and captured that sense of wanting that the book was essentially all about.

We are told the tale of a summer in a small town from two points of views: Charlie, an outcast who longs for friendship and to be included in the world that seems to be happening around her, so close and yet just out of reach; and Rose, a girl who dreams of bigger things outside of the small town in which she grew up, desperate not to follow in her mother's footsteps. Both stories are very touching and 'real' in a way that makes me understand the comparisons to [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg].

Like [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg]'s novels, there is an intricate exploration of each character, not just the two protagonists, that takes you deep within their minds and makes them instantly unforgettable. The book's focus is on a group of angsty teenagers, unsure of their place in the world and trying to figure themselves and their life paths out... and it's handled very well. All the characters are realistically imperfect, they lie and they manipulate and they steal, but ultimately you can't help but remain on their side throughout.

Nothing's so simple as "she's a bitch" and "he's a jerk", Crowley doesn't waste characters and no one is a simple throwaway addition to the group.

The writing is similarly well-crafted and beautiful, though not as flawless as [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg] usually is. I found sometimes it lacked smoothness and the author seems a bit too big a fan of similes, most of the time I liked reading the descriptions of the imagery but using multiple similes in one sentence can make it read awkwardly. But, on the whole, the writing really impressed me, especially when it came to some of the breath-taking songs Charlie had written.

I didn't give it five stars because sometimes it was difficult to differentiate between Charlie and Rose, I would occasionally get lost in the writing and forget who's point of view we were on and I would have to go back to the start of the chapter to check. I'm sure some people will disagree but I thought that, even though the protagonists' circumstances differed, their voices in the alternating POVs were often too similar.

Thanks Jasprit for being kind enough to lend me your copy of this :) ( )