Janet McNally

I loved this so much. It's a book that follows Phoebe on a trip to visit her musician older sister in New York, and at the same time follows her parents' relationship backwards. There was a lot packed into this book about creativity and identity, and family relationships.

There was a lot of symbolism here. Phoebe carries around a copy of Catcher in the Rye, and she wanders around NYC trying to find meaning just like Holden Caulfield did. She also carries around a Rolling Stones magazine which show more had an article about her parents' band, and she and her sister both seem to be following in their footsteps in each of their own ways.

Really well done. I want to re-read this at a later date and see what I missed the first time around. show less

This was a really refreshing read for me. It's not something mind-blowing or life changing but it had some really great character driven moments. Sometimes I look at the piles of books sitting in the corner of my room and wonder what I'll find. I got this book a while ago and kept putting it off in favor of other hyped up books. Eventually, enough was enough and I really wanted a break from the marketed hype so I closed my eyes and picked one of my own books.

Pheobe isn't talented like her show more sister Luna or even a musician like her parents. The performer gene was not passed down to her. Compared to their big and obvious presence Pheobe has a quiet one and just lets things happen to her. Her mother wants her to convince her sister to go back to college and her sister wants her to go support her at a performance before her band's tour starts. During the one week visit to her sister's place in Brooklyn, she's determined to start making things happen for herself.

In snippets of flashbacks, Meg Ferris lives her life as a rock star from the end to the beginning with the love of her life and her best friends at her side. She loves the music and at one point the stage but did she really ever love the lifestyle it came with?

I feel like I say this a lot but it's so rare for me to find a book with a likable main character. Pheobe is as flawed as a seventeen-year-old can get but she is self-aware. Her life doesn't change in a few days it just moves forward. Some of us wish that for just one day we could do something totally out of the ordinary for ourselves just to see what it's like and that's what she gets the opportunity to do. In Brooklyn, there's no best friend that's going to call dibs on the cute guy she's been talking to for months, her mom isn't going to low key dissuade her from mentioning her dad, and since she's feeling adventurous not even Luna is going to control her entire week.

I can't tell if Meg's flashbacks were her remembering her past while Pheobe was away but in the end, I didn't need to know. Pheobe also wants to know where everything went wrong in her mom's band and why her parents broke up and it's all answered in her mother's memories. Even when something looks perfect on paper at the end of the day people are human and flawed and that's what makes the world go round.

It was a week of self-discovery not necessarily change and I am here for that. This gets a high recommendation from me. show less

An excellent coming-of-age tale, but a bit more. There are two narrators, a mother and a daughter, telling their stories in different decades. The daughter's moves forward over the course of a week or so; the mother's goes backwards several years. It was beautifully written, with lush details about the music world. My only nit is that the daughter, Phoebe, seems a little too wise and mature for someone only 17. Thoroughly enjoyable, though.

My favorite part of this book was the relationship between the sisters. So often sisters are portrayed as being constantly jealous of each other. And though not a whole lot was resolved in the book, that felt right. Or at least true.