sheilaraeo

Being a fan of the sister group The Roches, I was excited to dive into this book by Suzzy Roche, the youngest of the three sisters. Expecting a light fun read with the clever wit of a Roches song, I found instead, a darker story of a woman lost and damaged by life. A story of broken relationships. A story of the fickle world of the music business. A story of mothers and daughters. A story of redemption. Mary Saint is a washed up punk rock star living a quiet, unassuming, unnoticed life in San Francisco. Still grieving after almost a decade, the loss of her lover/bass player in a tragic accident, she gets a call from her mother relaying a request from a teacher at her old high school in Swallow, New York, to come and play a concert at the school. What follows is a rocky road back to Swallow on which Mary faces old demons and finds new strength. I did find some beautiful writing with profound observations which I found inspiring and thought provoking. The only thing that I would say was a drawback (and I have to admit it was kind of a big drawback for me) was the utterly ridiculous names she came up with for the bands and some of the characters in the book - I mean really- “The Tennessee Twinsters”; “Sliced Ham”; “Snarkle Rot” ?? I understand that there are some crazy band names out there - but not every band you encounter has a name that’s practically laughable. It was more than distracting for me. Especially in the first third of the book, before the story really had it’s hold on me, I almost couldn’t get past the “stoopid” names. But trust me fellow readers, it’s worth the effort. This is a respectable debut by Suzzy Roche, and I would look forward to reading her next effort which I understand will be a children’s book.