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 Guitar Girl(Dutton Books) by Sarra Manning Reading Level: Young Adult Welcome to the world of sex, drugs, and rock & roll--British style. Told in a flashback by seventeen-year-old Molly Montgomery, Guitar Girl almost has it all. Molly's a smart young protagonist with a loyal best friend and a plan to become, if not popular, at least a little less ignored. But with the addition of the tall, dark, and edgy Dean and a record-company handler, The Hormones hit the big time. Suddenly, the girl-group is less about girls changing the world and more about money and product placement. Molly tells the tale with a rich combination of hard-earned smarts and attitude, but she lets herself be conned and connived a little too often to be believable as a punk girl with "star power." About the second time she literally "whimpers" in a man's arms, I have to wonder exactly how in control she is. Her other relationships are equally as confusing for lack of real detail. Finally, you may want to arm yourself with a Brit-to-American dictionary. Most importantly: "snogging” is making out and Best Buy is a grocery chain, not electronics! Most of the more colorful words explain themselves. More A (adult) than Y (young), Guitar Girl takes an old-fashioned romance set-up, dresses it up in thrift-store chic, but takes it somewhere slightly unexpected.— Jennifer Spray Doering, Member SCBWI
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