From beloved bestselling author Libba Bray, a story of love, rock n' roll, and sex (in that order) in 1980s Texas.
Bowie (pronounced "boo-eee") is a little bit lost in his small Texas town. As he starts his senior year, the only thing he's pretty sure of is that he has a crush on Comet Jensen, a girl who's such a firecracker that she actually sets a firecracker off on the first day of school.
Since Comet's one wrong move away from getting expelled, Bowie steps in and takes the blame for the firecracker stunt. His punishment? Community service at a local radio station run by an anti-social, anti-establishment anti-hero named Marlon. Suddenly Bowie finds he not only has something to do, but he also has something to say. And, possibly, a future with Comet.
In the tradition of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Eleanor & Park, Dazed & Confused, and The Last Picture Show, this is a funny, touching story about how coming-of-age, like love, is never a solo project.---from the publisher
400 pages 978-1546156543 Ages 14 and up
Keywords: coming of age, finding your voice, crush, romance, believing in yourself, historical fiction, 14 year old, 15 year old, 16 year old
****
Once upon a time there was a movie called AMERICAN PIE. It followed a bunch of teens for a night. Or at least that's how I remember it. Cruising the strip. Stopping off at the SONIC. All of the "All American" last night of the summer before college mandatory stops and the rest of life begins. Well, welcome to 1981. Welcome to the life of Bowie James Jones, son of a single mom, Johnette, who wants to own her own diner. Welcome to the life of a boy who sees a girl, Comet, and falls in love. He falls in love so hard he takes the "fall" for her when she sets off a firecracker at the high school they both attend.
Sports fans, that's where Ms. Libba Bray starts spinning her tale. She brings us a "Nam veteran named Marlon who may be drinking himself to death and sniffing some illegal substances, but he is going to deliver some stories about the highest highs of life and the lowest of lows. All of this while he DJs the local radio station, KYEW-FM, fielding the phone calls from the local lonelies and sending out the vibes of the music which is the only religion he can count on.
(KYEW= YOU)
When our hero, Boo-eee, takes the fall, he ends up doing community service at Marlon's radio station. So, we follow BJJ through the halls of high school, the heart pounds of meeting Comet, the girl in his English class, and down to Marlon's station where BJJ starts an education in what coming of age is all about - instructed by musicians of all stripes.
Okay, now you need to know that Marlon might lose the station - due to a failure to pay taxes - and it turns out the only thing that might save him is offering a quasi apprentice program to high school students at KYEW- FM. This opens wide the door and here comes a slice of high school life in the forms of Steffi (who dreams of becoming a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader), H (who dreams of finding the girl who will love her), Jim-Bob (who appears to be chill), Omar (who has the guts to ask Steffi to Homecoming), the Farrelli brothers, (who need advice on wearing pants) and our hero, BJJ.
Talk about a coming of age story. Talk about discovering the truth of the lives of the adults who are acting as authorities for these kids. Talk about figuring out what really matters. Just exactly how do we do this thing called life... this thing called being an adult, anyway?
This is a powerhouse.
It's a chapter by chapter walk through the days and weeks of the lives of teens in their last year of high school who have found real friendship, real love, real pain, real struggle and really don't know what to do with any of it. Will it all last? How do you hang on to the parts you don't ever want to lose?
Man, this is a beaut.
Read aloud in every high school classroom in America please.
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
