REVIEW:

Let me start with what Mary Jane is not. Despite the bold publisher blurb, it IS NOT “Almost Famous” meets Daisy Jones and the Six. At least they get the next bit right when they call it a “funny, wise, and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore.”

More IS/IS NOT:

• It IS actually funny. I LOL’d more than once and smiled often.

• It IS NOT a Young Adult novel. Despite the 14-year-old protagonist, Mary Jane has mature themes well suited for mature readers.

• It IS a literary trip back to the 1970s. Avocado-colored appliances, macrame, and President Ford references abound.

• It IS NOT a novel with a huge “what will happen” plot that pulls readers through its pages. This is a slice-of-life story where the delight comes from the characters and their experiences together.

• It IS a great exploration of class, race, lifestyle and gender stereotypes from the era. In one summer, Mary Jane leaves the sheltered nest of her conservative home when she nannies for a free-spirited family that opens her eyes to many things including the alternative meaning of her name. ;)

Really, Mary Jane is just a delight. If you can still squeeze in one last trip to the beach or pool this summer, toss this in your tote bag and get ready to rock and roll with a groovy girl and her far out friends-to-family story.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

"Almost Famous" meets Daisy Jones and the Six in this funny, wise, and tender novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her strait-laced family and the progressive family she nannies for — who happen to be secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer.

In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Show Tunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.

The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, IMPEACHMENT: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): The doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.

Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.