A Song for Julia (Thompson Sisters, #1)

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

From the bestselling author of Just Remember to Breathe

Everyone should have something to rebel against.

Crank Wilson left his South Boston home at sixteen to start a punk band and burn out his rage at the world. Six years later, he's still at odds with his father, a Boston cop, and doesn't ever speak to his mother. The only relationship that really matters is with his younger brother, but watching out for Sean can be a full-time job.

The one thing Crank wants in life is to be left the hell alone to write his music and drive his band to success.

Julia Thompson left a secret behind in Beijing that exploded into scandal in Washington, DC, threatening her father's career and dominating her family's life. Now, in her senior year at Harvard, she's haunted by a voice from her past and refuses to ever lose control of her emotions again, especially when it comes to a guy.

When Julia and Crank meet at an anti-war protest in Washington in the fall of 2002, the connection between them is so powerful it threatens to tear everything apart.

• ISBN10: 0988273632
• ISBN13: 9780988273634
• Publish Date: 15 December 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Cincinnatus Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 374
• Language: English

Reviews

[violetpeanut]

I read an excerpt of this book as a part of a promotional blog tour that I was participating in. I was immediately hooked and had to get myself a copy. I started reading it at bedtime, finally had to put it down to sleep, and then immediately picked it up once I sent my son off to school. I loved it.

The story is told in in alternating sections from both Julia and Crank's POV. I'm always a little skeptical when I see that type of writing because I often find that the characters don't have unique voices. That was definitely not the case here. Crank and Julia each have their own distinct voices, including slang, speech patterns, personality, etc. I loved Crank's Boston Southie accent and Julia's more proper one.

Both characters are shaped by their past experiences, but especially by their families. Family and how they help to shape us is a big theme of the book. What makes a true family? How do our relationships with our parents and siblings shape the people we become? Can giving and getting forgiveness free you to be the person you really want to become?

The relationship between Crank and Julia is a fustrating one. He is singer and guitarist for an up-and-coming band. He's with a different girl every night, parties hard and makes no apologies for it. She has lived a privileged but somewhat troubled life as the daughter to a U.S. Ambassador. At first glance they have nothing in common except a mutual sexual attraction. It soon becomes apparent, though, that despite radically different upbringings, they have both isolated themselves from friends and family but they end up in the same place. The circumstances that brought them there are different but they end up in the same place. I won't go any further than that because I don't want to give anything away, but the relationship is really a lot of push and pull. One pulls closer while the other pushes away and then the tables are turned.

I don't really know what I can say about this one. It is beautifully written with characters that grow and are multi-dimensional. It's a love story between two people. It's a love story about a family. It's about accepting your past and deciding to move beyond it into your future. It's about having the courage to make your own choices and accept the consequences. It's about learning what it truly means to love someone. It made me laugh more than once. It made me tear up more than once. It was beautiful and emotional and raw. I recommend it.

[Ashley]

BookNook — Young Adult book reviews

This book is an extremely tough one for me to review. Ultimately, I did like the story, but I didn't fully connect to it as much as I hoped I would.

Julia is from a really privileged family but has serious traumas from her past that still haunt her and make her unable to trust or connect with people. Crank is a high school drop out who is struggling to make it as a musician, and has family problems of his own. The two come together and end up changing each other for the better.

I think one of my problems with the book was Crank. I was never really sold on him. I got really tired of reading from his point of view, and he acted like too much of an asshat for me to really like him. He definitely has his sweet moments, but he also acted like an arrogant prick and his horny boy attitude bugged me sometimes. It almost made me wonder why Julia liked him. He did get better at the end and became a pretty sweet guy, but at the beginning—when Julia started to like him—he was mostly a bit of a self-obsessed prick. Also, Crank's point of view was riddled with quotes like this:

So we walked to the elevators, me slightly behind her, so I could look at her butt as she walked. I never said I wasn't a bit of a pig... or maybe a lot. But some things you just have to appreciate.

Before you think I'm a complete pig...never mind. I am. I was intentionally running behind her as we tore through the terminal.

I looked past the first one (which actually wasn't the first one I quoted—there were probably at least two before that). But after like the fifth time I read the exact same passage, I got really tired of it. Not only was it repetitive, but it made me really dislike Crank. Just something about his attitude made me imagine him as a horny little 15-year-old, rather than the 20-something guy I think he was supposed to be.

And then there was Julia... for the most part, I did like Julia. She had a pretty nasty past, but she's still a really strong and independent character. What I didn't like was her whole take on relationships. I get that she had some reservations, but I didn't like that she had those reservations for 90% of the book. The entire time, she pushed away a real relationship. She never wanted to commit to Crank. I think that made the book a little dull and slow-paced for me. I wanted to read about a really sweet, passionate relationship, but it was hard to get into it when Julia was ALWAYS pushing Crank away. I would have preferred it if they had a real relationship and had to overcome difficulties to stay together, rather than them not having a real relationship but having to overcome their pasts so that they could have one... if that makes sense.

A Song for Julia wasn't a bad book by any means, it just didn't make me fall in love or break my heart. The most emotion I showed during the book was when I read about the band at the end, and when I read a hilarious dinner scene with the President. The relationship part—which was kind of the whole point of the book—never brought out any emotion in me. It was the side plots that made me smile, giggle, and get excited. I really wanted this book to shake me to my core and I wanted a romance story that I would love. That didn't really happen. Maybe because Julia and Crank aren't actually "together" for most of the book, so I never even got the chance to love their relationship... because it wasn't ever there. We learn about the individual characters, their problems, and their development; but there isn't enough focus on them actually desperately wanting to be together. I feel like I missed that.

I do think that a lot of people will love this book and its romance—it just didn't click with me, for whatever reason. Reading some other reviews, loads of people got really emotional and heartbroken over the story. I really wish I could have been one of them.

Again, this isn't a bad book. I would still recommend it to people since I can see the potential for emotion and heartbreak, and the story is interesting. I feel like maybe I just got unlucky and too many small things built up and hindered my enjoyment of it.