Book Summary
Kara hasn't been back to Oak Park in over four years. She ran away after a near-death heroin overdose. Now she returns to the place that haunts her past to "face the music." This is described in the book's epilogue that acts as a prologue. It's interesting that Stephanie started with an epilogue. She says, "It just happened that way, honestly. I got that scene of Kara returning home after a four year absence and I knew I wanted to begin the book that way and since I was beginning with the ending it didn't seem right to call it a prologue."
The music that Kara needs to face is in the form of ballads: by a punk rock crooner or Johnny Cash. These ballads intertwine with the stories of Kara's best friend Stacey moving away, Kara's self-mutilation to ease the pain, a reconnection with her younger brother Liam, meeting new people in Scoville Park through Maya, and a tornado named Adrian, who would become her love interest. These ballads, according to Stephanie, are "soul-baring song[s] where you tell the story of your life, the most important lessons you've learned, how you fell down and picked yourself back up again." Each character breaks their silence by filling in the pages of the notebook Adrian and his friend Harlan passed around to their friends.
What's left is a story of how a girl falls apart, nearly kills herself, runs away, and returns to figure out how her life got to that point.
The music that Kara needs to face is in the form of ballads: by a punk rock crooner or Johnny Cash. These ballads intertwine with the stories of Kara's best friend Stacey moving away, Kara's self-mutilation to ease the pain, a reconnection with her younger brother Liam, meeting new people in Scoville Park through Maya, and a tornado named Adrian, who would become her love interest. These ballads, according to Stephanie, are "soul-baring song[s] where you tell the story of your life, the most important lessons you've learned, how you fell down and picked yourself back up again." Each character breaks their silence by filling in the pages of the notebook Adrian and his friend Harlan passed around to their friends.
What's left is a story of how a girl falls apart, nearly kills herself, runs away, and returns to figure out how her life got to that point.
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