Sorta Like a Really Fantastic Book

The other night, as the Red Sox swept the Angels, I found myself swept away by Matthew Quick's YA debut Sorta Like A Rock Star.  It had been in my to-read pile thanks to a blurb from one of my favorite writers, Sara Zarr, but a starred review in SLJ made me want to pick it up and read it right away.  And I'm so glad I did.

Amber Appleton has two things in droves: resilience and a sense of humor.  For all that life has thrown at her -- a drunk mother who falls for the wrong guys, a father she never knew, homelessness -- Amber has, at least publicly, shrugged it off and made efforts, everywhere to be optimistic.  She believes that through hard work, she can go to Bryn Mawr like her idol (her best friend Ricky's mother) and make a different kind of life for herself.  When she's not hanging out with the guys (thanks to an effort in elementary school to help the school's "weirdos" socialize, Amber's got this great group of guy friends, her closest friend being Ricky, who has autism), she's volunteering at an old folks home, teaching English via song to Korean ladies at an inner city Catholic church, and hanging out with a Vietnam War veteran.

It is so easy to fall in love with Amber, our narrator through this journey.  She's delightfully complex and constantly wise-cracking, whether she's calling the principle "Prince Tony" or exchanging insults with Joan of Old as part of a contest to get her to laugh, or Amber to cry.  Her voice is honest and fresh, peppered with her favorite words, like "sorta."  And so it is all the more heartbreaking for readers to see this hopeful, optimistic narrator shrivel into herself in Part Three of the novel.  The novel is written in an effortless, casual style, which suddenly turns staccato in the aftermath of a tragic event.  Amber's grief is palpable and will bring many readers to tears.

I don't really know want to say too much else, except that this book has a sorta genius way of working.  It does not read like a serious work of literature, and yet it has all that good, meaty stuff going on underneath it all.  With discussions of faith, the meaning of life, and why bad things happen to good people, this book will have massive appeal to readers that enjoyed Francisco X. Stork's Marcelo in the Real World.