Insta Review: Blackbird Fly by Erin Entrada Kelly

Insta Review gives you a new book recommendation in under a minute. Go ahead, time it!

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We’ve all dreamt about it – picking up an instrument and magically just knowing what to do, everyone around us exclaiming “She’s a prodigy!” Apple has the same dream as she scrimps, saves, and begs to get herself a guitar. An old tape from The Beatles with his name scrawled across it in permanent marker is the only piece of her father that she has ever known, and she’s tired of just listening to the songs. She wants to know what it feels like to make the music, and knows that a guitar will help her ‘take these broken wings and learn to fly.’ (Any other Balckbird die hards out there?) But her strict Filipino mother is not having it. Along with her musical yearning, Apple has a lot of other desperate wants: to be accepted by the popular girls that run her school, to understand why the boys in her class treat her the way they do, to come to terms with which version of herself is the real Apple; the Filipino daughter is at home, or the Americanized tween she is at school. Apple doesn’t know how to find any of the answers, but as anyone who has ever played and loved an instrument knows, you can discover much more than you ever expected once your hands hit the strings. Weren’t we all like Apple at one point, trying to navigate the waters of tween-dom without drowning? Apple’s lifevest is a guitar; what was yours? The Beatles themselves say it best – ‘All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.’ #bookreview #music #guitar #thebeatles

A post shared by Ms. Fitz (she/her) (@fitzbetweentheshelves) on Dec 22, 2017 at 8:17am PST