The Love Song of Jonny Valentine: A Novel

Written from the point of view of an 11-year-old pop star managed by his mother, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine creates a unique niche for itself among other works of literary fiction. In some ways, Jonny is oddly adult: he has a professional attitude about his work (he treats it like work), and he understands more about music and the music industry than most adults, let alone most tweens. However, some things go completely over his head, and often the way he talks/thinks is obviously shaped by industry practicalities that he has absorbed from his mother/manager (who he calls Jane, not Mom) and others around him. Both his bodyguard, Walter, and his tutor, Nadine, are occasionally baffled or taken aback by his parroting, and they show more gently probe for his real thoughts and feelings, but his experience is divorced from a "normal" context. He is so unlike most 11-year-old boys that he comes across as strange and fake to others, though he is authentic to himself. Of course, the real issue is why Americans are so obsessed with the entertainment industry - not just the entertainment itself, but the real people involved in it - and pay no attention to real news.

Quotes:

You smile, but you don't laugh. Like a song you hum along with but don't tap your feet to. (39)

That's how you know who's more famous, whichever one of you is more excited to meet the other. (39)

It's that they think they love me. But you can only love someone for real who loves you back. They're IN love with me. You can do that for someone who doesn't even know your name. (59)

"Disavowing your hipsterness is the surest sign that you are a hipster." (83)

"All that matters is what you are now."
That wasn't true, because you always knew who you were before and you kept thinking of yourself like that even if no one else did..." (210)

Me, I needed dialogue coaching and an allied interviewer and a receptive crowd, and even if I won them over the last twenty times in a row, I wasn't sure I could do it on the twenty-first. (250)

We didn't need to say any more. Musicians are like athletes. They all know who the MVP is. (251) show less

How old were Justin Bieber and Judy Garland when their careers were launched? Poor Jonathan Valentino, an 11 year old with an angelic voice and a devilishly ambitious mother-manager, is on an arena tour across the US, with his bodyguard and tutor along to protect his physical and mental selves from scheming adults. What a pitiful, wretched life for a fifth grader, and yet Jonny Valentine, so very savvy and self-aware, is a sucker for his all-too-present mother and his all-too-absent father. Whenever he's given a chance to act his age, it backfires. Whenever he's involved with older people, he's exploited. And yet his essential goodness and honesty shine through in this gloomy road story. A remarkably nightmarish, show more only-could-happen-in-America, tale. show less

Instead of playing baseball and crushing on girls in his class, eleven year-old Jonny Valentine is in the middle of a cross country tour, promoting his new album. Jonny made a name for himself through YouTube and his career skyrocketed with help from pre-packaging by his record label and the constant supervision of his mother and manager, Jane. As his tour progresses, Jonny begins to search for answers to questions about his childhood, father, emerging sexuality and, eventually, his future.

Teddy Wayne deserves a ton of praise for daring to walk the tightrope that the themes of this novel placed him on. Writing a story from the perspective of an eleven year old pop star could instantly lean YA, but Wayne finds near-perfect balance in show more Jonny's voice. While his industry-speak is shockingly adult, as he's spent so much time being scripted, we are frequently reminded that Jonny's general vocabulary is nowhere near Dawson's Creek.

Throughout the novel, Jonny's controlling stage mother seems to be losing control, allowing her son to be exposed to parts of the world she had actively tried to avoid. Wayne hits a high point of the story when Jonny befriends members of the older, hipster band - hilariously dubbed The Latchkeys - that his record label has chosen to open for him. When all of their techniques seem to oppose everything Jonny has been taught, we see the first cracks in the perfect package that had been built around him.

With smart wit and memorable characters, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine is a captivating look into the heart of pop culture that goes well beyond bubblegum. show less

As the father of two girls who had to suffer through Jonas Brothers and One Direction concerts during their tween years, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend time reading a novel with a Justin Bieber-like character at its center. Once I read the sample first chapter, though, the quality of Teddy Wayne’s writing convinced me to give it a try. I’m glad I did – this is one of the best novels I’ve read all year. It does what you might expect it would – showing how much everyone involved in promoting and overseeing the 11-year-old pop sensation’s career is exploiting him for their own ends. But it does a lot of what you wouldn’t expect it to. Unlike some satires of the entertainment industry, it doesn’t portray everyone as a show more shallow, self-interested lout. The eleven-year-old Jonny proves to be an incredibly compelling character with brilliant insights into his world that don’t seem precocious given his age, but genuine given the experiences he has had. And his bodyguard is the one character who seems to always have Jonny’s interest at heart, and who not surprisingly, Jonny feels closest to. His mother/manager is a difficult character to pull off given how bad the reputation of the type – a la Lindsay Lohan’s mom – has become. But Wayne does a masterful job of portraying her as a complex character, who yes, is getting rich off her son’s talent, but even when she’s being ruthless to everyone around her, you still understand her motivations for acting as she does. There are a number of highlight worthy passages here, and Jonny’s comments on music make you understand that even the bubblegum pop produced for tween girls requires a high degree of talent and artistry. As someone who held my nose up to my daughter’s taste in music while preferring the small-venue concerts of hardly known alternative bands who show up to music halls in one van they drive themselves, I developed a serious appreciation for the complexity of putting on a show that thousands of people attend at major cities’ biggest arenas. As Jonny contemplates his musical forbears, he also has great observations about artists like Buddy Holly and that passage in particular gave me insight into Holly’s greatness that I didn’t have before. After finishing the book, I put Wayne’s 2010 novel Kapitoil high on my to-read list, and he’s a writer whose work I’ll always be on the lookout for because his achievement here is so impressive. (The novel reminded me a bit of Steffan Piper’s Greyhound, another terrific novel about a young boy having to fend for himself – in this case on a cross-country bus trip, rather than as a mega-music star – with a caring older man who watches out for him. If you like this one, I’ll think you’d enjoy Greyhound as well.) show less

We aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover are we? Too bad. Because as soon as I saw this all of my sparkle senses started going off. It's so shiny and shimmery! The cover was the first thing I loved about this book but it definitely wasn't the last.

Jonny's narration is spot-on. His innocence will make you smile and his cynicism will make your heart ache. He is surrounded by people who truly love him but those voices are drowned out by the fans, the marketing, the big machine that keeps him famous.

Every move that Jonny makes is choreographed. Every morsel of food that he eats is mentally cataloged and combated by exercise. Every song that Jonny sings is researched to garner and preserve the most fans. Even though he is fawned over show more by nearly everyone he meets you sense that he is simply a very lonely little boy.

This book is a scathing commentary on our celebrity worshiping culture that I couldn't put down. show less

My Summary: Being a kid on the verge of puberty is hard enough, but for Jonny Valentine it's only the tip of the iceberg.

Jonny is a pop star at the ripe old age of eleven. Having grown up in the spotlight, Jonny never got to experience things normal kids do. With every second of his life planned out, Jonny doesn't even have time for fun, let alone friends or school.

Sheltered by his psychotic 'momager' Jane, Jonny doesn't even know what became of his absentee father... until the day he logs onto his mom's computer and finds a message from his dad on every fan site. But is it really him? As Jonny begins a mission to reconnect with his dad, he'll discover just how far he'll have to go to maintain his fame and his career.

My Thoughts: This show more book was heartbreaking. Jonny is probably one of my favourite narrators of all time - his mix of innocence, cynicism, and humour will soften event he hardest of hearts. Growing up in showbiz has taken everything from Jonny, but he still manages to put on a show. Jane was reminiscent of those crazy pageant moms you see on T.V. - so obsessed with being the best that she ignores what is happening to her child and forgets to treat him like a real person.

Wayne's commentary on the way we treat our celebrities - especially child stars - resonates with the reader.

"We always want to have as much control as possible over my image, but the Lisa Pinto exposure made sense from a packaging-strategy perspective, since even if it was driving off some of the fat girls, it would bring in more of the pretty girls, and if they liked me then the fat girls would like me more to try to be like the pretty girls, plus the pretty girls would bring their boyfriends to my concerts, which effectively doubled gate receipts and they also had to buy them crap merch to make them happy, but the fat girls didn’t have boyfriends. They had to buy the crap merch for themselves to feel happier. But Jane says we’re in the business of making fat girls feel like they’re pretty for a few hours and that most pretty girls are afraid other people think they’re fat anyway, so maybe it’s all the same."

Jonny has been made into the perfect product by his team, and you can see the way it morphs his thoughts.

The theme of slavery works perfectly with the novel, as Jonny is what we come to see as a slave to the masses and his celebrity itself. And as he fumbles through his first teenage experiences, we see just how much of a tole growing up as a pop star has had on Jonny.

Final Thoughts: Wayne has written an honest and unflinching account of child stardom. I recommend it to anyone and everyone looking for a great read. show less

This is an excerpt from a longer consideration of this work, which can be viewed on BuriedInPrint.

When we meet Jonny, he can’t sleep; he turns on the light to play The Secret Land of Zenon.

In this first sentence of Teddy Wayne’s novel, Jonny might be any eleven-year-old boy.

But even while listening to the background music for Zenon, Jonny recognizes the audience-loyalty retention strategy at work.

And readers immediately recognize that Jonny — who is wired after the show that night and itching for some of Jane’s zolpidems to help him sleep — is not a typical eleven-year-old boy.

In The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, Jonny was born Jonathan Valentino, but he has become Jonny Valentine, a Beiber-esque figure, professional show more heart-throb and crooner who rose to fame via online vids and savvy management.

(There has been a lot of chatter about this novel, and I’ve always wondered why everyone seems to compare this character to Justin Bieber, but the epigraph is Justin’s: “I want my world to be fun. No parents, no rules, no nothing. Like, no one can stop me. No one can stop me.”)

The novel portrays both the public and private worlds of this character, and because they are often in conflict, the story makes for compelling reading.

“I kept looking over at the kids behind the glass windows of the doors, which was unprofessional camera protocol, but I couldn’t help myself.”

There are many times at which Jonny is aware of the conflict between his personal desires and professional expectations (e.g. he wants more fries but must consider his waistline), and there are many times in which he can’t help himself (e.g. he looks over at those kids, eats more fries).

But this theme is most memorably embodied in the scenes in which Jonny realizes that his professional identity has fundamentally changed him.

When he realizes that there are aspects of Jonny Valentine that have completely engulfed Jonathan Valentino, Jonny’s situation touches readers in an unexpectedly poignant way. show less