Wildflower

By: Alecia Whitaker

Narrated by: Alecia Whitaker

The best songs come from broken hearts.
Sixteen-year-old Bird Barrett has grown up on the road, singing backup in her family's bluegrass band, and playing everywhere from Nashville, Tennessee to Nowhere, Oklahoma. One fateful night, Bird fills in for her dad by singing lead, and a scout in the audience offers her a spotlight all her own.
Soon Bird is caught up in a whirlwind of songwriting meetings, recording sessions, and music video shoots. Her first single hits the top twenty, and suddenly fans and paparazzi are around every corner. She's even caught the eye of her longtime crush, fellow roving musician Adam Dean. With Bird's star on the rise, though, tradition and ambition collide. Can Bird break out while staying true to her roots?
In a world of glamour and gold records, a young country music star finds her voice.

A Revelation

This was a book that my daughter and I tried to talk each other out of, and ended up talking each other into; luckily it turns out. This turned out to be one of the best audiobooks I've listened to since I joined Audible. Though most of the people in this young adult novel are at least one notch too good to be true; the story itself has the ring of authenticity. Though I've never had any connection or experience with the music industry the people sound like a tamer version of biographical stories and magazine articles I've read. The endless takes, the constant reworking of songs, the publicist setting up pseudo meetings with other celebrities and cluing in the paparazzi.
The heroine is delightfully sweet, innocent, naive girl that those of us who've been through life with a real teenage daughter take in with both longing and disbelief. Much of this is due to the inherent restrictions of the young adult genre, but Bird is so likable that I was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. The jealousy and resentment felt by Bird's brothers was if anything; understated.
The longing she felt for a relationship with musician Adam Dean, and her reluctance to do anything to further it, doesn't remind me of my daughter or her friends. However for a girl who was home schooled and spent most of her free time with her parents and older brothers it might be quite realistic that she wouldn't be too aggressive in pursuing it.
The Crossways, both mother and daughter were well written as mentor and "bestie." I also loved the way she stepped up to do the show for the schools program for the arts. Another digression from an educational system that seems to move further from reality every year. I mean the only thing we're exporting these days other than military armaments is our culture and entertainment. It seems extremely shortsighted to pinch pennies when it comes to one of the few enterprises where we still have a positive trade balance.
I'm expecting a sequel; either that or Alecia Whitaker is destined to be an excellent writer. The easy thing to do would have been to close the book with a cliched ending; that didn't happen. My daughter who is by the way, years beyond the target age referred to that ending as "keeping it real." The story itself as "corny and sweet; but corny in a nice way."
I just call it a really good story by a writer I hope continues to produce top flight work.

Excellent!

I had attempted to read this novel on a couple of occasions, but couldn't find time to finish it. The audio version was the perfect solution for me! I enjoyed the story, the characters, and listening to it as read by the author brings additional depth to the characters.
Great work! I can't wait to read/listen to the next one!

Good Book

Well written book. I'm not much into country music but this made me want to try listening to some.