A book about music, depression, and sibling relationships, this story has an audience somewhere. Unfortunately, it did not resonate with me as well as it may with others.

This book is short and intense and I did really like it.
I did cry like a baby - reading about loss does make me feel super sensitive. Very well written.

If we learn anything from fiction it's that grief presents itself in unusual ways. In this case, by refusing to engage in life. We have an isolated girl taking advice from imagined conversations with her dog. As is typical, the grief and the ways her life is unspooling are a catalyst for confrontation with her mother who has been failing to deal in her own ways. The bulk of the text is the protagonist making a series of bad choices each of which makes thing s a little worse. The ending is a bit nebulous, making it harder for some readers to accept.

When I first started reading this book I was hooked. As I continued to read the story became somewhat mundane, but I had to discover what was going to happen with Jolene and her family.

"He strummed, gently at first and then harder, and as the rhythm unfurled into a song, I sang along. I usually only ever sang when we were walking, when we were goofing around, and that was more like hollering anyway. I didn’t know how it sounded now or if he wanted me to shut up, but when the song concluded Matt looked up and said, “That sounded good. Let’s do it again.” "

The book is told from Jolene’s POV. Jolene isn’t a very confident person and feels quite worthless. She’s really only comfortable when she’s with her older brother Matt. It’s during these times that she can relax, be herself, and play music. Out of the blue, Matt leaves and Jolene is left in a world of depression. It’s like Jolene has been beat down and has to find a way to build herself up again. She needs to live again and has no idea how. Her people skills are lacking and she doesn’t have a lot of support.

"When Matt left, parts of me stopped working. My mouth doesn’t move when I try to talk. Or it opens and nothing comes out. At night when I lie down to sleep, I can’t close my eyes, even when I try. My feet won’t listen to reason. Some days they insist on carrying me to a strange part of town, like they have an appointment to keep that I’m not privy to."

Her dad doesn’t want to talk about Matt and her mom is simply too busy singing karaoke and bringing people home from the bar. Everyone seems to be living their lives–even with Matt gone–when all Jolene can think about is getting her brother back or leaving Winnipeg for good. She talks to her dog named Howl and seems to gain some comfort there. She continues to play guitar to cope as it’s the only thing connecting her to her brother as she attempts to find a way to move forward with her life.

"I play my song again, trying to get it perfect this time. I think it counts as a song, but I don’t know how to tell when you’re making more than noise, when you’ve given the sound enough shape to call it something else. I played it over and over last night so I wouldn’t forget it. I played till it infiltrated my bones and my pulse fell in step alongside it, until I could hear it even when I stopped playing, so that any dreams I might have had were drowned out. Music is the noise I make out loud. The rest I keep inside myself."

The premise of this story is interesting, but the majority of the book is Jolene dealing with depression and coping with her brother’s absence. On top of that, she deals with her dysfunctional family. The book deals with loss and other themes including; coming of age, tragedy, facing fears, and family. I’m not going to say I didn’t feel emotion when reading it, because I did, but there surely isn’t a whole lot happening for much of the book. It’s quite dismal, but around half way through the book picks up and you start figuring out things that were previously hidden and eventually everything comes together.

As far as characters, I thought some were well developed, but a few others weren’t. Jolene’s dad, for instance, doesn’t have much of a background at all and some of the secondary characters were just there. I was able to really connect with Jolene having an older brother within the same age gap, but some of the things she does in the book just seemed a tad strange. I understand that she’s dealing with depression and feeling abandoned, but in the beginning of the book she comes off as thinking quite negatively and simply accepting her mother’s drinking habits and wild lifestyle, but then as the story moves on in the second half, Jolene is the one out partying, using drugs, and drinking so that she can open up and become more social. Jolene is highly neglected for being sixteen years old. For these reasons, this may be a book better for older teens due to the drug use and drinking, etc. Of course this is my personal opinion.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Outside of finding parts of it dull, I thought it was written well and I’ll look for more books by this author in the future.

3.5***

I’d like to thank Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for sharing this book with me in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed the writing in this book. It read it in mostly one sitting. It really just flowed well and drew me in deep rather quickly. I loved the plot and the pacing. The whole thing gave me some strong Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock feels with a dash of Sadie thrown in for good measure.

A unique aspect was the music and concerts Jo goes to. I love music and I honestly related to that part of the story so much (minus the drugs and alcohol)

All the characters felt so real. I know people like them. I love them. I hate them. I am them.

Jolene: She was so relatable it scares me a little. She's an overthinker to the extreme (hello, that's me), she avoids conflict (thanks for calling me out, Nora Decter), and she dresses like a hobo with some money stashed away (help me). She's self-deprecating and sarcastic, and I just want her to have good things (I want to have good things too).

Her relationship with Matt, her brother, was definitely one of the most interesting parts of the book. It just so happens that one of my WIPs is basically the same plot (but I a sci-fi setting) so to see it so wonderfully executed was both exhilarating and frightening.

Maggie: She's such a great character. She's awful, but also awfully human. She's not bad but not good and you have to love what she gives you

The Squad: Graham, Drew, and manicpixiedreamgirl were fun characters, and really liked them, but they were definitely the least interesting part of the book, though they did help move the plot along.

Ms Groves: She's honestly the Herr Silverman of this book and I loved her. She's sassy and unconventional and freaking loves tea.

I really appreciate this book. It's short and intense and will make you cry. Also, it's got a psuedo-psychic dog named Howl for goodness sake!

Death and dying.

In this case, it is Joline’s brother, Matt, who has died, and with him, the last shreads of what has grounded her to her home with her alcoholic mother, and her distant, divorced father. Matt was there for her, taught her about music and how to listen, and now he is gone.

And so, this book is a story of a journey. Jolene knows she wants to, needs to go somewhere, but doesn’t know where, just not be in Winnipeg.

And yes, that is the whole book, this journey, this mourning in her own way, so to speak.

But along the way we get <em>bot mots</em> such as these:

<blockquote>An empty king can of Coors rolls by, the Winnipeg equivalent of a tumbleweed</blockquote>

Or
<blockquote>“Because I don’t believe in love,” I saw through a mouthful of deep fried potato. They look at each other.
“What do you mean you don’t believe in it? Love isn’t like a Sasquatch. It’s existence isn’t up for debate,” he says.</blockquote>

This is not to say it isn’t a typically angstish teenager, in the story, but she has a lot to say, and a lot of pain.

Well written. I won’t say enjoyable, because books like these are tear jerkers, or emotion tiggers. But there is the joy in reading a well written book.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for an advance copy of this book. **Any quotes used are subject to change prior to final publication**

"I guess what I'm beginning to understand is that you can kill yourself asking unanswerable questions."

This book was not what I was expecting. I honestly wasn't sure where the story was going...until it happened and we were there. It read very much as literary fiction, but toned down to be appealing to the YA crowd.

It's so fascinating how people handle grief. It can be difficult to pinpoint if someone is acting a certain way due to grieving (which is exactly what happened to me in this case) and it always makes for an interesting story.

I really liked Jolene's character, she was flawed but in a beautiful way. And HOWL! OMG, I loved Howl. "Because, she says, I pay attention to my family. It's my job." I actually loved all the characters, which is very rare.

I love books about music, there's not much I enjoy more than seeing passionate words about music and how it makes people feel.

While writing this I realized how much more I enjoyed the story than I initially thought!

I was kind of indifferent to the story, and to the characters, but it was not a bad book in the least. I liked a lot of the lines and more than that I liked Jolene's voice, even if I didn't like her. I think it just wasn't for me.

Well-written story about 16 year old Jolene who has absent parents and an older brother (who she had been close too) who left over a year ago. She has been left her to figure out her teenage life alone for the most part. Jolene lives in a somewhat isolated and brutally cold (in the winter) Canadian town. She has a dog she loves to walk, and talk to as well. She hangs out and goes to school and loves music.....and she is slowly branching out socially making new friends, experimenting and also meeting her first love. Her behavior is kind of worrisome as the story progresses but she manages to work things out as she learns more about herself and comes into her own. Nice and heart-felt. Good writing and interesting characters too.

Jolene is growing up in Canada with a fickle mother and a sometimes-absent father. Her brother and best friend, Matt, left for something bigger and better, which Jolene hopes to do eventually. She runs into an old swim team acquaintance during her efforts to deal with the grief of her brother leaving, and she begins to hide her grief in other ways.

Not a lot happened in this book. It's mainly Jolene trying to figure her life out through a series of events (some as mundane as walking her dog). The writing is excellent; I certainly felt the pull of Jolene's emotions, and I really was invested in her as a character.

I was looking for a sweet redemption story when I grabbed this one and was kind of granted my wish with it. Though the story starts out slow, it eventually picks up into something that somewhat kept my attention.

Jolene is just...a sad character. Her brother left her and all she thinks about is how she can pawn stuff and how far it will get her. She doesn't go to school, but she pretends to be a student at a nearby college. There, she meets some "friends" and kind of comes back to life.

But only a little.

She struggles so much with her brother "leaving" that often times she doesn't even get out of bed. Even when her mother, who has never been a real mother, starts to get sober and get her life on track, Jolene still struggles.

It isn't until over halfway through the book do you realize that Matt didn't just leave- he's dead. Jolene's behavior starts to make sense and it takes a real wake up call for her to get her act together.

I did enjoy the last half of the book as I read about how Jolene was getting her life back on track. There are some great side characters in this book that you'll love more than Jolene, including her hot mess mom and new best friends.

This was a nice little redemption story, even if it took a while to get to that point. Family and sibling dramas always call to me and this one was worth the read. Check it out in September.

This book was a solid middle-ground rating for me. Parts of it were interesting, but I feel that too much time was spent on being aimlessly sad which, I understand happens in real life, but doesn't do well in a book.