Offbeat

This month I’m trying to get through some of my free arcs (advanced readers copies) from Net Galley starting with this book by Megan Clendenan.

This is a cute story about Rose, a fourteen year old who’s going to folk festival with her fiddle group.  While there, she’s in a competition where the winner gets to play with Lunar, her favorite band.  For Rose, the competition means even more because her mother gave her an ultimatum before leaving…get serious about classical music or lose her music lessons.  Maybe if she wins to competition, she can show her mother that performing is her true passion.  

This book has a few conflicts:  best friend drama, a potential crush, a broken violin…but they all seemed to be resolved quickly and with minimal fuss.  While at the festival, Rose meets Liam, a boy who’s her biggest competition and keeps (accidentally) stealing her songs.  Liam invites her to a music jam session, but it’s after Rose’s curfew so she convinces Shiloh, her best friend, to cover for her, which ends up backfiring.  There wasn’t anything wrong with this book, but there wasn’t anything that made it stand out as special.  The best part of the book was the setting of the festival, which was quirky and fun.

This book is a fine upper elementary/middle school book, but I can see older kids getting a little bored with it.

*This copy was free from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.  Want to buy the book?  It comes out August 28th!