Customer Reviews

Sorta Like A Rock Star

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Part of you is hesitant. You're wondering if a YA book about a teenage girl who lives on a school bus with her mother is really the kind of book for you. You're wondering if Amber Appleton -- who teaches English to Korean women, who visits old people in a nursing home when she's not related to any of them, who makes omelets for her autistic friend, who believes in god but is also cool with athiests -- is "believable." You're not sure if you're ready for a book about surviving the great and small challenges that befall a girl in today's world. You're afraid that it will not meet your high expectations or that it will meet your low expectations.

Don't be foolish.

In the hands of author Matthew Quick, you are well cared for. Amber Appleton is real -- as real as any of the great teenage voices that have come before. I can name them, but why clutter your mind with comparisons? Amber is new and yet familiar. She is a girl with a troubled mother. She is a girl that has a list of her favorite mother-daughter moments. She is a girl who thinks about fathers, who tries to help everyone else in order to help get through her own day.

Her world is real -- both joyous and grim. Her problems are real. She sleeps on a bus, for starters. Her favorite teacher is under siege. Her mother is depressed. And yet, there's something magic going on here that I can't describe without giving too much away. It has to do with haiku and video games and people coming together when everything is coming apart.

You don't have to be a teenager to read this novel. The only thing that is required of you is that you are ready to connect and feel a kinship with an offbeat teenage girl who spends her time caring for others, not expecting anything from anyone but in turn gets more than she could ever have hoped for. You'd have to have a pretty black heart to come away from reading this book without feeling uplifted (and highly entertained). If anyone might be hesitant to read a young adult book---perhaps it might be somewhat warranted to worry about reading Twilight or other such books, but this book should be required reading for the human race.

As a long time high school teacher and the parent of a young adult who was definitely "different" in his high school years, this book marvelously portrays the reality of surviving high school when you don't "fit in." All teens should read this - to feel not alone if they don't feel like part of the experience, and to gain some empathy for others if they are one of the popular ones. Great read. Couldn't put it down.

This is the kind of book that I would never have picked up if I hadn't been forced to read it for school, but I am so very glad that I did. It starts off a little slow, and the reader may find themselves feeling "This is all fine and good, but where is it GOING?" But then the big turn comes and suddenly you cannot put the book down. Some things that turned off my classmates was the main character's manner of speaking, because she has a language all her own and a bunch of rather odd catch phrases. Don't let her language deter you, though, because it really is something that makes this book special.
I had the honor of meeting Mr. Quick through the class I had to read this book for, and he is a wonderful person who really knows how to get under your skin. Whether it is through the main character, Amber, or one of her many compatriots who help her along the way, you will relate to somebody in this book and love it to tears. Some of my classmates said that they felt it was a modern day Catcher in the Rye, but I'm not sure I would go that far.
Read it, you won't regret it. True? True.

This one is for all of the kids who live outside the edge of normal, all of the kids who have secrets behind what their faces show at school each day, all of the kids who have been picked on, and especially for all of the kids who when faced with the worst, offer up their best.

This one is for all of you who are rock stars of hope, just like Amber Appleton the winning heroine of Matthew Quick's charmingly heartbreaking YA novel Sorta Like a Rock Star.

I've been a fan of Quick's writing for a while now and I expect a lot from his work. I expect honesty and humor and a wacky set of characters doing interesting things: and, boy, does this book deliver all of those things in spades. Most importantly, this book delivers a great big heart, all packaged within the body of Amber Appleton--who is one part Dorothy in Oz, one part Alice in Wonderland, and one part all her own. She's a girl who has been pushed down into a dark place due to circumstances beyond her control and when life deals her an unfair and devastating hand, even though she wants to give up, she refuses to.

Partly she keeps going because Amber is not alone in her hardships; through her dark times she has her friends (a group of misfit kids, a haiku writing war vet, a Nietzsche quoting nursing home villain, and a Catholic priest among others). In her darkest hour when all she wants to do is be alone, they will not give up on her. They fight for her in the way no one else ever has--not even her parents.

Amber teaches us to never give up yearning for a better future. She teaches us what it means to survive. Most importantly, she gives us hope.

Buy this book for your favorite high school kid. Buy this book for your mother and father. Buy this book for a complete stranger who looks like he is having a crappy day and needs a reason to believe. Buy this book.

An extremely touching story - funny and heart-renching, with wonderful characters. You won't be able to put it down. You will find yourself trying to change your life to match that of the main character's. Enjoy!

Amber Appleton is a character who will stay with you long after you've finished reading this novel. I marvel at Quick's ability to get not only into the head of a 17-year-old girl, but into her soul. This is a highly satisfying read about a teen who faces crushing hardships, descends into depression, and emerges with new strength and life-affirming hope. This book repeatedly made me laugh out loud, but it also led me to shed more than a couple tears. I only wish I knew what happens to Amber when she grows up! I'm confident she got accepted at Bryn Mawr - her first choice school. I recommend this book for high school students as well as adults.

I cannot tell you how much I adored this book! It's one of those rare books which has you smiling, literally laughing out loud at parts, grabbing a tissue at others, and then in the end - leaves you with a feeling of hope and an absolute love for the main character. I mean - I really, really want to meet Amber Appleton and be her friend. She's got a tough life - living in the Hello Yellow Bus with her mother and dog, Bobby Big Boy - better known as BBB. But Amber only sees the positive in her life and is determined to help those in need. She helps people most everyday - such as her work at a local Korean church teaching women English (or "the Korean Divas" as she calls them) by having them sing Motown songs. But when something devastating happens in Amber's life, it drives her into a deep, dark hole and she needs to admit that sometimes helping herself comes before helping others. In the end, this is a feel-good book that speaks to everyone and will have everyone cheering for Amber and her quirky friends! Highly recommended!

Even though it's a book for teens and I'm far from being a teen, I am a Quick fan (I loved The Silver Linings Playbook) so I ordered it - and I was glad I did. Quick seems to specialise in characters who attract both your affection and your admiration, without ever being creepy or mawkish. Like Pat Peoples in TSLP, Amber Appleton is an offbeat, heart-warming character: she has a broken, hopeless mother whom she both loves and pities, and a slobbering mutt of a dog, and a church choir of Korean women to enthuse, and a grown-up friend with the kind of career that Amber longs for but doesn't really believe she can have, because she's clear-eyed about the odds that are stacked against her. She is a go-getter, and she goes and gets - until the day something terrible happens. This is where the book really came into its own, and rose to a whole new level. I won't give away what happens, but it's all beautifully-judged and extremely moving. You are forcibly engaged. And the ending will move you to tears. I'd recommend this novel to any teen - but also to all adults, too.

A wonderful, fantastic read. I don't normally read anything young adult, so when I first starting reading Sorta Like A Rock Star, I thought that this is how the genre goes - a quirky, oddball teen struggling with a variety of issues. But somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about it as a young adult book and became totally engrossed with the character and her story. I laughed and cried all the way through to the end. Ultimately a book about hope and the goodness of people, it's the kind of book that when you turn the last page, you sigh with satisfaction and think that it was time well spent. I highly recommend it for any age - you will not be disappointed!