Amato, Mary. Get Happy. New York: Egmont USA, 2104

For me this soon to be published novel evoked the early days of Glee. Minerva moves through her life with a constant soundtrack playing in her head. According to her new friend Hayes in the book, he is drawn to her in part because of the way she and her friend “Fin would sing harmonies…” He heard her “singing [her] tiny violin song in the park after school.” When my daughter and I first began watching Glee, we were jealous of the main characters who could just burst into song whenever the need arose. Their highs and their lows were punctuated dramatically by music. Minerva and her friends do just that.

The summary from the book’s website is this:

Meet Minerva. Minerva Watson wants a ukulele for her 16th birthday. What the aspiring songwriter gets instead is a shocking invitation from her long-lost father to reconnect. The secrets she discovers about family, friends, music, and herself will keep you turning the pages and hoping she will find a way to keep breathing and…maybe…actually…finally… get happy. (thrumsociety.com)

I did, indeed, keep turning the pages, and root for her. The niftiness of her character overcomes some pretty convenient plot twists. Her overly dramatic tone worked for me, but might prove distracting for some of my more down to earth readers. Even so, her dramatic edge is sometimes punctuated with moments of insight and beauty. She describes the ocean as “a beautiful greenish gray, the waves small and gentle, the water folding right at the shore as thought each wave were happy to come home.” These moments take the edge off of Minerva’s high energy drama. And Minerva grows, calms, and matures through all of the changes she endures, good and bad. In the end Get Happy is a refreshing and honest read.

As I was preparing to write this I went to the website where the book promises that I can hear some of Minerva’s original songs. What a lovely site for music and book lovers. I appreciated getting to hear Minerva’s voice in a more tangible way. And the love of music and reading that is evident in the website exemplifies the spirit of Get Happy. I definitely have an audience for this book and look forward to sharing it with them.

A copy of this ebook was provided by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.