i think that when a protagonist states something to the effect of, “but that was before all that happened,” the all that in question had better be thought provoking and not fairly predictable.

i liked the premise of the book—namely, that the songs that get stuck in our heads are giving us the answers to life’s challenges. but somewhere along the way (okay, about halfway through), i lost interest in all that. one of the reasons i think it didn’t resonate was that there weren’t any actual lyrics in the book (understandably because it costs dough to reproduce with permission), therefore it made it hard to see things through Mary Beth’s (the title character) eyes.

all in all, okay—not great.

I was initially very intrigued by the concept behind this book: the idea that you could figure out people’s problems by examining the song lyrics that run through their heads. It ends up being more than just that idea—there’s more of a story here than I expected. And in the end, I really enjoyed the story Tucker built around the concept that drew me in.

The characters were well developed-especially the teenage narrator, Leeann, and her older sister Mary Beth (the “song reader”). The story of their family drew me in and kept me reading. It did feel like a first novel in places-there were times I felt the imagery or situations were a little too obvious. But overall, it was a quick, good read.

Looks good…I need something fun to read!