She gets good grades, her teachers love her, and she plays the cello beautifully. He doesn't really connect with people, especially his nagging mother whose 'help' isn't much appreciated. Tripp Broody has lost a lot his father died and his best friend moved away. Gr 8 Up-Two very different high school students discover a mutual appreciation for writing songs for the guitar. 12-16)ĬOPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Amato, also a Washington, D.C.-area songwriter, weaves in convincing musical detail and advice that will appeal especially to readers experimenting with an instrument themselves.

The intense drama of the ending surprises after the gradual development of their friendship, but the picture of the myriad pressures teens feel rings true. Short, third-person present-tense vignettes, each headed with a place and date, carry the plot along, helped by frequent emails, text messages and handwritten notes, as well as illustrations (not seen, but said to include music, notes, tests and receipts). It is their developing emotional relationship rather than a physical connection that defines the novel. Playing the guitar helped Tripp forget the death of his father and the absence of his best friend, who moved away, but his mother has confiscated his instrument until his grades improve.

While Lila expects to follow in her footsteps, part of her would like a break from both the cello and a demanding best friend, Annie Win.

Lila's deceased mother was a professional cellist. Even) alternate lunch-period use of an instrumental practice room and a school guitar, developing a bond through their shared feelings of pressure and their love for making their own music. While the story is notably “clean” (Tripp and Lyla’s relationship is entirely chaste, and there’s no swearing, alcohol, etc.), the characters’ chemistry will have readers’ hearts racing. Amato nicely captures Tripp’s love of music and Lyla’s anxieties, though the story takes a late melodramatic turn that jars with the comparatively light material that precedes it. Trip encourages Lyla to loosen up, she draws him out of his shell, and they find similarities in their lives and begin to write music together. What begins as an exchange of terse notes between Tripp and Lyla turns into emails and text messages, and soon a close friendship anchored by their shared love of music evolves. When his mother takes it away from him, in the hopes that he will become more social, he uses a school guitar and practice room, alternating days with Lyla Marks, a talented cellist who is under tremendous external pressure to get into a prestigious conservatory.

Trip Broody is an observant introvert whose only release is playing guitar. Amato (Edgar Allan’s Official Crime Investigation Notebook) pens a music-driven meet-cute starring two dissimilar high school students.

Guitar Notes by Mary Amato