The Way Back Home by Alecia Whitaker

Alecia Whitaker wraps up her Bird Barrett series with this novel about a country singer who struggles to find balance in her life after becoming famous.

Eighteen year old Bird Barrett is on tour with her best friend Stella Crossley who is her assistant, her brother Dylan who plays in the band. and the rest of her crew.  Bird's brother Dylan has taken a year off college to tour with her while her parents stay at home helping her granddad recover from a broken hip.
Bird's Shine Our Light tour will visit forty-nine cities in North America over the next nine months and is the result of months of work with the Open Highway team.From the beginning of the tour, Bird begins to suspect that Stella has a crush on Dylan, making her feel a bit out of sorts.

In Los Angeles to do tour promotion, Bird runs into her nemesis, Kayelee Ford and twenty-three-year-old British playboy, Colton Holley. Holley invites Bird to his new nightclub in Las Vegas which Bird will visiting in a few weeks on her birthday. As the tour progresses Bird finds herself often away on related business and when she is back she begins to realize that Stella and Dylan might be an item. This makes Bird feel like an outsider on her tour and brings back memories of her failed relationship with Adam Dean.

In Las Vegas the concierge at the Venetian manages to arrange for Bird to visit Holley's nightclub with Stella and Dylan. They run into Colton Holley who treats them to a scrumptious dinner before heading to Club Colt. At the club they hit up the blackjack tables and have unlimited bottle service. Bird becomes increasingly intoxicated to the point where she has difficulty walking. When Colton comes on to her, Dylan steps in and eventually Bird refuses Colton's advances. Back in her suite, Bird is so drunk she pukes and passes out. The next morning a very hung over Bird gets through rehearsal but Dylan
reminds her that this is her tour and she is the boss, responsible for everyone on the tour.

When the tour is in Salt Lake City, Bird finally confronts Stella about her blossoming relationship with Dylan. She tells Stella that she wishes she had told her about her feelings towards Dylan. After Salt Lake City, Stella tells Bird that Dylan indeed does like her. Bird indicates to Stella that she does not want to be caught in "the middle if there's any drama" and she doesn't "want to be the third wheel" on dates.

Bird attends the VMA with Troy, her publicist Anita and her mentor, former country singer Bonnie McLain. She's been nominated for Best Video with a Message for
her hit Shine Our Light. While Bird has on a modest red cocktail dress, her rival Kayalee is dressed in a purple bandage dress that is very revealing. Even worse,Kayalee's provocative performance lights up social media much to Bird's annoyance.

After the VMAs, Bird learns that her opening act has suddenly quit citing a number of excuses. Bonnie suggests that Bird ask Adam Dean, who has just released his first single, to open for her. With Adam on the tour, Bird finds herself feeling the same attraction to him that she had last year. But can she and Adam keep it strictly business? Should she even try? And as the pressures of touring and fame begin to mount, Bird finds herself struggling to maintain a balance in her own life.

Discussion

The Way Back Home is a wonderful conclusion to the Wildflower series about a young singer getting a break and becoming the next country music superstar. It's hard not to see the parallels to real life star Taylor Swift's rise to stardom as the premiere country music performer in 2008 and 2009. To that end The Way Back Home does a good job portraying the pressures a rising young performer faces when breaking into the music industry.

In the beginning of the novel Bird recognizes how many people are depending upon her. "Over a hundred and fifty people have jobs because of this tour. It's massive, and if I let myself think about the risk involved, it causes me major anxiety. A lot of people are counting on me."

Bird struggles to retain some sort of normalcy in her life, attempting to maintain her friendships while dealing with the day to day pressures of traveling from city to city and performing. Her publicist works hard controlling Bird's image and we see how every situation can be easily taken out of context and exploited either against or for that image. For example, on her eighteenth birthday, Bird celebrates by going to a club but drinks to much. She quickly comes to understand that as a public person there is no privacy for her and that every action will be scrutinized. As a result, Bird begins to feel less and less in control of her own life.
"Okay, yeah, I am the boss. Except I'm not. I still have to answer to my parents, my label, and my fans. Oh, and I'm the bad guy, but they were both there partying with their boss last night."

The pressure is intensifies when a reporter with Rolling Stone magazine spends a few days with the tour. But when the reporter, Jase, ends her stint with a tough interview that results in Bird losing her cool. the stress causes Bird to argue with Stella and to tell Adam that she longs to be a regular person again, "No autographs or pictures or screaming fans." A series of situations gradually lead Bird to come close to a breakdown; she refuses to sing at a rodeo when it's discovered she's in attendance and the Rolling Stone article makes her out to be a "judgmental and hypocritical Goody Two-shoes who plays the part of the wholesome all-American girl but parties behind the scenes." She also treats Stella badly when she misses a wardrobe cue during a performance, and lashes out at her brother and Adam. In desperation, Bird reaches out to her mentor and former country music star, Bonnie who whisks her away to her farm to help Bird recover and refocus.

Bird tells Bonnie that she feels like she's living a lie, that everyone believes she's "this charming, sweet, perfect role model" when in reality she wants to be different from that sometimes and that she can't say anything off script because "my team is carefully curating my aura..." But Bonnie tells her that with today's social media almost everyone has a public persona that isn't real and that maybe she's a bit jealous because "your family gets to go eat wherever they want whenever they want. And your friends can date and make new friends without ever wondering if the people they meet have ulterior motives...And they all get to make mistakes...but they all get to make their "just human" mistakes behind closed doors." Bonnie helps Bird recognize that "life is short, every moment spent with the people you love is precious, and every moment spent doing what you love is a gift."  With this new perspective, Bird returns to the tour and works hard to repair her relationships with Stella, Dylan and most importantly, Adam.

At times Bird almost seems too good - she wins two Grammys; one for Best Country Song and a second for Best Country Album. When Kayalee Ford crashes and burns at the awards and ends up puking drunk in the bathroom, Bird rescues her and later on with the help of Bonnie gets her into rehab. Bird and Bonnie visit Kayalee leading the two girls to end their feud. Bird looks beyond the Kayalee who has hurt her and recognizes "the pressure to make sure your parents didn't sacrifice everything for nothing, the pressure to make it to the top, the pressure to hone a public image, and then the pressure to maintain it." Although someone cheesy, the scene is in keeping with the character Whitaker has created and developed throughout her three novels.

The novel's subplot is the reappearance of Adam Dean and Bird's second chance to start a romantic relationship with the guy she's been crushing on for some time now.  After attempting to play it cool when Adam joins the tour, Bird acknowledges "The feelings I've always had for him have taken root in my heart again..." Complicating matters is the fact that Bird is Adam's boss. Their relationship is kept under wraps so that it can be revealed to the public at the right time. Bird is very accepting of Adam's difficult and troubled family situation and supportive of his career and he in turn is able to support her because he understands the pressures of working in the music industry. Readers will be rooting for them as their love blossoms.

Capitalizing on the current fame of Taylor Swift, Whitaker's The Way Back Home will probably appeal to younger teens who are also Swift fans. The relatively clean romance and the positive messages in this novel about living life with appreciation and gratitude along with the themes of forgiveness, the importance of friends and family when you need them most, all add up to make a good story.

Book Details:

The Way Back Home by Alecia Whitaker
New York: Little, Brown and Company 2016
327 pp.

Wildflower by Alecia Whitaker

Wildflower is a fun, refreshingly clean novel about a sixteen year old girl navigating the world of country music and on the threshold of stardom.

Sixteen year old Bird Barrett is part of a family of musicians, the Barrett Family Band who play bluegrass and tour around the southern United States. Besides her mom and dad, Bird shares the family Winnebago with her two older brothers. Her dad sings and plays banjo, her mom the mandolin, nineteen year old Dylan plays guitar and seventeen year old Jacob is on bass while Bird plays violin. Bird has a big crush on nineteen year old Adam Dean, a close friend of Jacob and another young musician who plays the circuit. Bird considers Adam to be a talented musician and every time their paths cross, she excited to catch up with him again but she's not sure if he feels the same about her.

Bird's family ventured into music after the death of her brother Caleb from a drowning accident. If not for his death they likely would still be living in their two-storey home in Jackson, their father working as a real estate agent. But music saved Bird's family; it was suggested by their pastor that they take up a hobby, something they could do together as a family. So her father returned to playing the banjo, purchased some gently used instruments from a music story and the Barret Family Band was born. Dylan played steel-stringed acoustic guitar, Jacob took up the bass, and Bird's other played the mandolin. Bird chose the fiddle. After Bird won a fiddling competition and Dylan had a successful performance at the school talent show, their father Judd began signing them up to play at local festivals. They've been on the road for the last seven years, ever since Bird was nine.

When Bird's father becomes ill before their next gig in Nashville, she is told she will have to sing lead vocals at the Station Inn. Bird loves music but she's never sung lead before. At first she's nervous but she manages to get through the gig with the help of her family. Afterwards, Bird and her father are approached by a talent scout, Randall Strong, from Great American Music in Nashville. Randall wants to sign Bird to a contract with GAM. Although thrilled, Bird is concerned that this leaves her family missing an essential part of the family band, and for Dylan who passed on college to tour with them.

While the rest of the family vacations in North Carolina with Gramma, Bird and her father meet with Randall who arranges for Bird to do a spot at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. After a successful gig "in the round", Randall attempts to sign Bird that night with GAM. Judd however wants to look over the contract. On their way out of the club, the are approached by another talent scout, Dan Silver who is president of a small record company, Open Highway Records. Bird likes Dan who talks to her and explains that if she signs with GAM she will be churning out the same stuff that's being produced everywhere and her unique talent will be lost. He tells them GAM will "try to package you to fit into their pop image and new-country sound." After discussions with Dan, Bird and her father decide to sign with Open Highway.

This means putting the Barrett Family Band on hold while Bird records her first single, shoots a video and gets an image makeover. Shannon Crossley, one of the singers at the Bluebird Cafe, helps Bird rewrite her Notice Me song about wanting her friend Adam to notice her. Shannon's daughter, Stella, soon becomes Bird's best friend. Stella helps Bird reach out and connect with Adam, encouraging her to text him.

As Bird's music career begins to evolve, Dylan struggles to accept what is happening and that he is being left behind. A good musician in his own right, he is struggling with feeling of jealousy and pride. At her release party for her single, Notice Me, Bird encounters Randall who tells her that he has signed a new talent who will be stiff competition.

Eventually texts and phone calls with Adam lead to Bird taking time out of her hectic schedule to have breakfast with him at a pancake house. Bird tells Adam that GAM originally was interested in her but she signed with Open Highway because they led her to believe that she would have more artistic control. However, Adam makes her realize that this is not the case, as evidenced by the change in her appearance, and the difficult time she had convincing them to allow her family to play on her album.

During their catch up time Adam reveals that GAM has just signed a new country singer, Kayelee Ford and that he has been offered a gig to play at her release party in a few weeks. Shocked, Bird questions Adam about making music for someone else but he tells her he wants to settle down and doesn't like the road life. In an attempt to head off what Bird thinks is the possibility that she will lose Adam, she makes him an offer to play on her album although she knows this is highly unlikely. They part with Bird promising to come see Adam play at the 5 Spot in a few weeks.

However, several events occur that soon drive a wedge between Bird and Adam. The first is a set up by her publicist, Anita, with a hot movie star designed to create some publicity as her new single climbs the charts. The second is Bird's well-intentioned decision to help out best friend Stella's high school fund-raiser catches her trouble with Dan Silver and causes her to miss Adam's gig at the 5 Spot. The third is the break-up of the Barrett Family Band with her brothers both applying for college. Can Bird possibly cope with the turmoil in her life and her rocket rise to stardom?

Discussion

The warm, attractive cover of Wildflower invites readers into a touching story about a young girl getting her big break into the music world while struggling to come to terms with the changes that break brings to both her family and her personal life. Bird never imagined herself having the life of a musician, it wasn't something she'd worked towards. Life was simple, just she and her family touring, enjoying making music in small towns, and crushing on a cute boy who seemed to like her.

Wildflower is the first in a three book series about the fictional Bird Barrett's rise to country stardom. Originally Bird starts out playing fiddle, but the cover shows her holding a guitar, perhaps representative of how Bird doesn't quite stay true to herself in the novel. Although Dan Silver stated that his label would not repackage her, that is in fact exactly what they do to Bird. They replace her beloved violin, Maybelle, with a fancy guitar, make her a red head and her publicist even sets her up with a hot, young movie star to garner her some publicity. Instead of being backed by her family, Bird has seasoned session musicians perform on her album. It is her muse, Adam Dean, who inadvertently makes her aware of this, yet Bird seems to ignore this. When she tries to step outside of the boundaries Dan Silver has placed her in, by playing her fiddle at the fundraiser at Stella's school, she's taken to task for it. Not yet mature enough to fully understand who she is, Bird apologizes to Dan and Anita. Ironically, it is Bird doing what she does best, singing and fiddling, that results in her trending on Twitter and getting a ton of publicity. It will be interesting to see how Whitaker develops the theme of identity and the conflict that seems to be building between Bird and Dan over their different visions of Bird as a country music singer.

Whitaker has created well developed characters who interact in a believable way in situations that seem realistic. Especially well done is the lunch Bird has with famous movie idol, Jason Samuels.  They behave as two young people who don't know each other and who have basically been set up on a blind date would - they struggle to find common ground and have a conversation. Based on Jason's actions, Bird realizes that he's is not the plastic movie star he's made out to be.  "...even though all the characters Jason plays in movies make him seem like just another pretty face, now that we're two regular people hanging out in a coffee shop, I realize there's a little more depth to him than I'd figured. He's really a nice, if slightly quirky, guy." 

Bird is a typical teenager with teenager interests that include music, worries about how to attract the interest of a cute guy she's crushing on, shopping and hanging with her new best friend.The descriptions of how important her music is to her are well done. Her best friend, Stella, is a caring person who understands Bird's world of music and offers her a sympathetic ear.

Wildflower has a bit of everything that makes it work; there is the interesting hook of a young girl being discovered and on the verge of stardom, a touch of romance and a bit of conflict. The novel ends on a somewhat sad note, with Bird struggling to find comfort in her music, creating a perfect lead into the next novel.

Book Details:
Wildflower by Alecia Whitaker
New York: Poppy, Hachette Book Group    2014
304 pp.

This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

It all begins with an errant email sent one night by an unknown person,GDL824, to sixteen year old Ellie O'Neill. It turns out that person is a seventeen year old boy who lives in California with his pet pig, Wilbur. What follows are a series of emails that continue on through a period of three months in which EONeill and GDL824 establish an online friendship.

Unbeknownst to Ellie, her secret admirer is none other than teen hearthrob and actor, Graham Larkin. And what's more, iGraham has managed to convince his producer to move the location of his next movie to the small town of Henley, Maine where his unknown correspondent lives.

Graham and his costars are booked into the Henley Inn and with his arrival come the hordes of paparazzi. Meanwhile, Ellie and her best friend Quinn try to go about their jobs. Ellie  works at her mother's gift shop.

In a chance meeting, Graham enters Sprinkles after Ellie leaves and sees Quinn wearing Ellie's shirt with her name on it. He assumes Quinn is Ellie and asks her out to dinner. Graham quickly learns during his date with Quinn the truth about Ellie and sets off to meet her at her house. However, when Graham shows up at Ellie's house and identifies himself as the person she was corresponding with, Ellie is stunned and embarrassed. 

Ellie is reluctant at first to become involved with Graham because she is struggling to come to terms with the fact that she has been corresponding with such a famous person. "Most girls, she knew, would be delighted to find out they'd been corresponding with a movie star. But to Ellie, it just seemed unfair. She wanted nothing more than to spend time with GDL824 this afternoon. It was Graham Larkin she wasn't so sure about." 

Ellie is also reluctant to get involved with such a high profile person because of her past - or more specifically her mother's past. Ellie is the illegitimate daughter of a well known senator Paul Whitman, who is considering a run for the United States presidency. When her mother found herself pregnant and abandoned years ago, she fled to the small town of Henley, Maine to live a reclusive life. Ellie's potential involvement with Graham Larkin and being pursued by paparazzi is sure to uncover her family's secret.

Despite Ellie's fears, the following day Graham manages to convince her to meet him at a cove. Gradually Ellie's attraction to Graham returns and they begin to meet secretly, their attraction as real as it was online. But Ellie wonders how can two people with such different lives ever be together? And how can she still see Graham and protect her mother's privacy too?

Discussion

This Is What Happy Looks Like began wonderfully with a prologue featuring the emails sent between Graham and Ellie. They are sweet and witty, drawing the reader quickly into the story. A young woman who is unknowingly corresponding with teen heartthrob and movie star makes for a great romantic beginning. 

However, the initial premise as to how Graham and Ellie meet feels contrived. It's very unlikely even a major star would have much say in where a movie is filmed. Locations are scouted months if not a year in advance so that settings for various scenes can be arranged. Instead, the author should have developed another way for Graham and Ellie to meet- perhaps having Graham arriving on a vacation, or to visit a nearby friend or relative.

As a result, the novel loses its way quickly. The manner in which Graham and Ellie actually meet is rather creepy when he suddenly shows up at her house. It also seemed somewhat unrealistic that a major movie star (as Graham Larkin is described in the novel) would spill all the details of his secret correspondence with Ellie who is unknown to him and who he is trying to find,  to someone who claims to be her friend (Quinn). It would have been more believable if Graham would have kept his surprise to himself, having already discovered the identity of his online friend and then discreetly learned what he needed to know from Quinn.

From this point on, the novel feels slow. Quinn's behaviour towards Ellie was irritating and immature - amazingly she expected Ellie to tell her everything about her life, and when she doesn't Quinn dumps her. Yet later on when more important information about Ellie is revealed, Quinn seems incredibly ambivalent. The lengthy episode involving Ellie and Graham stealing a boat used in the filming didn't seem to further develop the relationship between Graham and Ellie. While most readers will be happy with the ending of the novel, it was for the most part, predictable and somewhat flat - a sweet uncomplicated finale.

This Is What Happy Looks Like does have some interesting characters that readers will enjoy. Ellie is a good student who hopes to attend Harvard and who reads poetry. She wasn't star-struck by Graham because she was able to develop a friendship with him unaware of his identity and therefore outside of his public persona. Although Ellie likes Graham and wants to date him, she struggles because of her family's secret. This leads her to want their relationship to be private (no cameras, no publicity). something that was mostly outside of Graham's control even though he tries his best. A relationship with a public figure means sharing him/her with the public, something Ellie was not willing or ready to accept. This felt realistic as it's probably one of the reasons why very famous people struggle to maintain relationships. Not everyone can deal with this kind of scrutiny.

Ellie was naive in believing that her personal life could remain private in these circumstances. Sadly, instead of helping her daughter, Ellie's mother's cynicism plays out. When her mother learns of her relationship with Graham she coerces Ellie into breaking off with him. This should have been a source of major conflict between Ellie and her mother, yet it wasn't developed as much as it could have been. Instead, Ellie accepts her mother's view of what will happen, which makes sense considering that Ellie is only sixteen-years-old. So she makes the difficult decision to break up with Graham. It's likely that in this situation, Ellie's mother is correct - as Graham's career develops, the demands placed on him would likely make their relationship difficult.

Ellie's mother Margaret seemed to have given up everything for privacy and seems cynical. As a person who wanted to change the world, her life didn't quite work out the way she planned. Yet, in order to protect her daughter and herself, she has made a significant sacrifice, living a quiet life in a small town running a gift shop. She wants what's best for Ellie and feels that, in the end, Graham will not offer that.

Graham is a sweet, charming guy who hasn't yet been corrupted by stardom. It's obvious his sudden rise to fame has been hard on him and his family but again that source of conflict was only briefly touched on. Graham's wit makes for interesting dialogue, at times making him a quite genuine and romantic character. Smith does a good job of portraying what it must be like to be hounded by paparazzi on a daily basis with Graham's run-in with a photographer.

This Is What Happy Looks LIke is a sweet story about two young people from very different social circles, who fall in love over a summer and then move on. As a result, This Is What Happy Looks Like was somewhat disappointing and felt like it never really quite reached its potential. This novel might have worked much better if the characters were older, in their early twenties which Ellie being in college. However, it's possible the author wanted to explore the issues around teen stars and fame.

Book Details:
This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith
New York: Little, Brown & Company     2013
404 pp.