When somewhat naive, if very innocent, 14 year old. Mary Jane accepts a summer job as a nanny for sweet, precocious 5 year old, Izzie, hilarity ensues. Mary Jane’s family is conservative, compulsive and very formal, to the point of being cold. Her Mom is reminiscent of June Cleaver in “Leave it to Beaver”!. Izzie’s family is much more progressive and, free with affection, if somewhat lacking on child nutrition and discipline. The extremes of both families are bridged beautifully by their shared experiences and both Izzie and Mary Jane benefit. Along the way I found myself alternately shocked yet giggling hysterically. While the story is sometimes over the top, it was definitely a fun escape from some of my recent darker reads. Several times I was reminded of Kevin Wilson’s “Nothing to See Here”, another enjoyable read where the young, seemingly inexperienced Nanny, proves to be a positive force for the child in her care.
#MaryJane. #NetGalley

Mary Jane is a fun and uplifting coming-of-age story set in Baltimore during the summer of 1975. I breezed through this one, and it left me with such a happy feeling of nostalgia. The author does a wonderful job of incorporating details from the 1970s (like the ubiquitous avocado fridge), as well as the music and culture from this magical summer.

Mary Jane Dillard lives a sheltered life with her parents, who care more about appearances than affection. Instead of summer camp, Mary Jane decides to nanny for the Cones and their five-year-old daughter, Izzy. Dr. Cone is a psychiatrist, and his only patient is a famous rockstar, in therapy for his drug addiction. Jimmy and his girlfriend Sheba, a famous actress, are living in secret with Dr. Cone and his wife for the entire summer. Sweet Mary Jane is introduced to the world of sex, drugs, and rock n'roll; at the same time, she introduces the Cones to the world of home-cooked meals, cleanliness, and organization. I loved the way this 14-year old girl takes charge and teaches the grown-ups, while she is still learning about herself.

Be sure to add Mary Jane to your summer reading list! Highly recommended for older teens and adults who enjoy historical fiction. Thanks to Netgalley and Custom House for the librarian preview--I am looking forward to adding this to our collection!

Mary Jane is an absolutely delightful novel that I couldn’t put down. This coming of age story of 14 year old Mary Jane had me nostalgic of pre-internet times.

Through Mary Jane, I felt the bliss of sun on my shoulders, the joy of discovering who she will be and the buzzy feeling of connecting with people living a radically different life.

This book is funny and smart and comforting, and I highly recommend picking it up when it drops on May 11.

Thank you William Morrow Books for the digital advanced readers copy of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

Mary Jane is coming of age in the 1970's. She takes a mother's helper position over the summer. The family she is working for is the opposite of the household she grew up in almost all ways possible. I could relate tot he story in the book as I also came of age in the 70's. While at times I found Mary Jane to be a more naive than I would have expected, I still enjoyed the story. I recommend this book.

I really loved this book and look forward to reading more from this author. This is the first book I've read from her.

I am always impressed by well-developed characters and that is one spot where this book really shines. In this coming of age story, the 14-year-old protagonist, Mary Jane, grows up in a wealthy suburb of Baltimore in the 1970s. Her eyes are opened to very different lifestyles when she takes a summer nanny job with a family completely different than her own. Up to this point, her summers have been spent at sleepaway camp or at the country club pool. This summer, she takes on more responsibility than she signed up for as she cares for the child of a psychiatrist. Along with caring for the adorable and precocious Izzy, Mary Jane transforms the neglected home of a family with no regard for cleanliness, hygiene, or regular mealtimes. She does this in the midst of a family with a troubled marriage and a live-in heroin-addicted rock star patient and his famous wife.

There were many times when I cringed at what both Izzy and Mary Jane were exposed to but it did make for a great story. I had to remind myself it was fiction. As fiction, it was highly entertaining.

Perhaps one summer is not the ideal amount of time to learn all that Mary Jane learned, but this book sure packed in a lot. She learned about addiction and that it does not have to be a defining characteristic of a person. She learned not all marriages work and some work in very unconventional ways. She learned that sometimes what looks dysfunctional on the outside isn't when you dig deeper, and other times what you see is a symptom of a much larger problem. She learns about the racism that was commonplace in the 1970s and how her own family was complicit. There is so much more to list and several things no 14-year-old should have learned.

My only complaint about the book is that the ending is wrapped up too neatly. I won't spoil it for anyone, but I do think some of the characters changed too much and too abruptly and the ending was a little too smarmy for my taste.

This is such a great coming of age novel. Fourteen year old Mary Jane spends the summer babysitting the neighbors' 5-year old daughter in 1970's Baltimore. These are just any neighbors, the Dad is a psychiatrist and the mom is a free spirit, the exact opposite of Mary Jane's uptight parents. When a rock star and his movie star wife come to spend the summer, Mary Jane spends the summer growing up and changing her view of the world and those around her. I loved all of the characters in the novel and couldn't put this book down.

Mary Jane gets a summer job as a nanny for the precocious Izzy. By the end of the summer, she sees that not all families are the same and love can look very different. Mary Jane has grown up in a home where rules and schedules are followed and displays of love or affection never occur. As the first weeks of summer pass, Mary Jane is thrown into a family with a different lifestyle. Richard and Bonnie Cone, Izzy’s parents, show affection and live life in a carefree way that is jarring for Mary Jane. When the Cone’s invite a famous couple to live with them for the summer, things get even more exciting.

I enjoyed how Mary Jane is exposed to different types of families and learns that not all families are the same. I was happy that at the end of the book, Mary Jane was still a nice girl, and hadn’t become jaded against her parents. The experiences she had during the summer strengthened her, but doesn’t make her bitter.

I felt like her mother’s actions at the end of the book were jarring and unexpected because there was no lead up to this change. I would have liked to have had this explained more. Overall, it was a nice easy read. Thank you Net Gallery for the opportunity to read this.

What a great story! I really enjoyed this book. The characters were very likable and it was a sweet, easy read.

Mary Jane, a 14 year old, deides that rather than going to sleep away camp or spend the summer at her parents country club she wil take a job taking care of Izzy, the five year old daughter of her neighbors, the Cones. Mary Jane, who feels invisible and has difficulty making friends enters a world that is totally different from her parent's world in working for the Cone's. Mary Jane's comes from a home which is traditional, regimented , strict and unemotional. The Cone's home is messy. loud, affectopnate and undisciplined. Dr. Cone is a psychiatrist and two new individuals are added to the mix;, his patient, Jimmy (a rock and roll star who has addiction problems) and Jimmy's wife Sheba a famous, popular actress. Through her exposure to Izzy, The Cone's, Jimmy and Sheba ary Jane' becomes aware of a different way of thinking and interacting with people. She develops as a person and recognizes that adults can be fallible and that she is capable of ideas and feelings that are diffferent from her parents. The book is charming and engrossing. It is a joy to watch Mary Jane become an individual with confidence and her own opinions. The small issues I have regarding how Mary Jane finds the job and the amazing abilities this girl has to cook, clean and take care of a five-yer-old with more skill than most adult women are far outwighed by the utter charm of the story.

Wow. It's been awhile since I've read a fun book so quickly. I felt like I was going down a fast and wild race course with all the suspense.

The year was 1975 with a wide generation gap between the conservatives and liberals. Mary Jane's was an only child at 14 years old and her parents were on the top list of old-fashioned values. Everything was about image. They lived in a nice home. Her father worked as a lawyer while her mother took care of the home. The family went to church every Sunday. They were members of a club in Baltimore. The father read the newspaper while her mother cooked dinner.

Mary Jane decided that summer camp wasn't her thing. She would rather spend time taking care of a five-year-old, Izzy, as her nanny. In just a few months, this experience changed her from being an innocent young girl to one that was exposed to a family that was the total opposite of hers. They talked freely about sex, the house was messy and unorganized, the mother didn't cook, and love was affectionally shown.

There's more: Izzy's father, Dr. Cone, was a psychiatrist taking care of one patient in his home, a rock star, Jimmy, addicted to drugs for the summer. His wife was a famous actress, Sheba. She said, "We're all addicts of some sort...Part of being alive is to figure out the balance between what you want...,and don't have." Of course, Mary Jane's parents had no clue that their daughter was being exposed to this group of free thinkers.

I loved this book. It made me laugh, cry and brought back memories of the past in so many ways. My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy to be released in May, 2021.

I tried to remember myself as a 14 year old...was the storyline true to that age? I am of a more recent generation, so it was hard to imagine.
This is the story of Mary Jane, a 14 year old girl, and her opportunity to be a nanny for a summer. She experiences so many new things that summer, because the people she spends the summer with are so different than her family and her neighbors.
It’s a fast read, and a feel good story. I do feel like some of her reactions, thoughts and behaviors ran from that of a 10 year old to that of a 20 year old but I guess that’s not abnormal.
Thank you to Book Club Girls and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blah is about a 14 year old girl who is a summer nanny to 5 year old Izzy. The Cones house is very different from Mary Jane's. Over the summer, there are learning experiences, some growing and maturing to Mary Jane and some of the other characters. I love that Mary Jane brought things to the Cone house and she learned things from the Cone house. You can't help but love Izzy. I would recommend!

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau is a fabulous historical fiction novel that takes the reader into the time and era of 1970s Baltimore and was fascinating throughout.

This book is a wonderful coming of age novel of teenager Mary Jane as she navigates the real world and all its tarnished surfaces as she is exposed to reality as a newly hired babysitter to a young girl that is a part of a larger then life family.

Here we see her thoughts, feelings, and the actions of these characters through her eyes. We can see richly drawn characters. We see the vibrant descriptions of fundamental relationships between mother/daughter, family members, loyalty, betrayal, lies, truths, addictions, weaknesses, and all brought to us by the wonderful narrative of a teenager.

The character portrayals were fascinating and I think my favorite part of the book, other then Mary Jane herself. So unique and refreshing and highly recommended.

This would be a great book for a book club read.

5/5 stars

Thank you NG and William Morrow for this arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication.

Wow, this book was fantastic. It is a coming of age tale about a girl who grew up in a conservative family and then went and worked for a family that was very unlike her family. I loved the concept and plot of this book and the characters were very compelling.

This is a charming unique story that engaged me right at the start.
The story is told through a naive teenager named Mary Jane. It was the summer of 1975 and 14 year old Mary Jane takes a job being a nanny to a five year old girl named Izzy. Mary Jane lives a very sheltered structured life with her parents. When she begins her work as a nanny with the Cone family, she finds the environment is totally different than she is used to. Chaos and lack of structure is at the Cones house. Then a very famous couple moves in with the Cones to live discreetly for the summer. The famous couple adds some controversial backdrop to the Cone family residence.

I really enjoyed Mary Jane's journey of self discovery. Mary Jane's love and nurturing towards Izzy was so endearing. Through singing and cooking Mary Jane found a valued place within the Cone family and their famous guests. She found love, acceptance and a special friendship. But when her two worlds collide, will she be able to continue with both? You will have to read this book to find out.

I absolutely loved this book and I would not compare it in any way to Daisy Jones and the Six (which I felt had a continuous depressing theme). This book is touching and made me reminisce back to my childhood and teenage years.

This is my honest review of this ARC and I would like to thank William Morrow and Custom House Publishing along with Net Galley for this wonderful early read.

Mary Jane is as a very different genre from what I usually read but I enjoyed it. It was well written, heartwarming, and had you rooting for the characters in it, especially Mary Jane, the main focus of the book. The book tells of a summer for 14 year old Mary Jane as she gets a summer nannying job surrounded by people very much out of her family’s norm.

The characters and their families showed plenty of dysfunction in an often humorous way, and I thought the story portrayed really well how we all need to surround ourselves with people who are different than we are in order to grow, how to invest in one another and put aside judgement, and to fight for one another’s best even if it’s outside of your comfort zone. The only real reason for a lower rating is that it just isn’t what I’d normal choose and not totally up my alley in subject and genre.

Thanks to Netgalley for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I tend to stay away from dated coming of age books - I am dated and feel I should try and connect more to the present. This takes place in the 70s. But in the description it mentions that the mother has a subscription to Broadway showtunes of the month record club and I had a flashback.. I remember my whole family driving over to hear the latest one at a friend's house, (albeit in the late 50s), .so I was hooked and decided to read Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. It was delightful. Mary Jane has been brought up with order in her life. There has been no questioning of values - her parents values are hers. But when she takes a summer mother's helper type job for a new neighbor, it opens the doors to lots of questions, not all of them ones you'd ever think to ask.. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. She learns adults don't all behave the way they probably should and yet she is drawn to their humanity. They, in turn, are drawn to the order she tries to bring to their lives. I found myself rooting for Mary Jane as well as for the young child she is taking care of in the family of chaos. Things do not end up all neat and tidy but they do end up hopeful - for everyone. Worth the read.

I whizzed through this in a day, and found it super charming, though I don't think the DAISY JONES comp is at all accurate. Mary Jane was a really believable character, though some times it felt a bit too obvious the points that Blau was trying to make. I felt like the discussion of sex would be incredibly poignant in a young adult book, but here it felt almost mocking. I wanted a little bit more conflict, and for Mary Jane to have a bit more of a struggle in running a house and mothering Izzy--specifically, I wanted a witch!

I loved this book's premise. A girl babysits for a psychologist who is secretly treating a '70s rock star in his home for the summer. I absolutely loved the power this book possessed to send you back to that time. A real amazing world to get lost in. My one minor criticism is I thought the protagonist Mary Jane was maybe just a little too perfect. But as I say, it's a small flaw. The overall magic of the book is tremendous.

Netgalley provided me with a free e-galley of this book in return for this review.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and William Morrow and Custom House for the opportunity to read and review this ARC! I found this book to be a compelling read, although I simply couldn't connect with it!