In Anticipation of NaNoWriMo: Four Vaguely Rock and Roll(ish) Books

NaNoWriMo is a week away. I promise I won't bore you with updates, bitching, or the general panic that comes with crafting a novel in thirty days (I have a Tumblr for that), but the content around here might get a bit skimpy in the next four weeks. I'll try to remember my bloggy duties, but I can't make any promises. Until then, here are four novels I wish I could have written that some sort of a rock and roll theme:

Girl by Blake Nelson
Oh so 90s angsty. Published in 1994, Girl is Nelson's first novel and a favorite among the YA set. Andrea is a bored, smart teen on her way to college who finds herself enmeshed in the Portland music scene via her fried, Cybil (Rayanne Graff to Andrea's Angela Chase) and a boy, Todd.

The Exes by Pagan Kennedy
The Exes are a hip Boston band made up of, guess what? Exes. As in, they used to date each other. Each chapter tells of the band's conception through the eyes of a different member, which according to one Amazon reviewer produces, "an omniscient Rashomon-like narrative that weaves pop reference and nerdy rock-geek sensibility into a combination Harlequin Romance/Celebrity Tell-All."

Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story by Lewis Shiner
What I love about Say Goodbye is that it reads more like a biography or a memoir that a novel. Normally, I think novels like this fail more often than they succeed, but Shiner's writing is so perfectly nuanced that you really believe Laurie and the people around her exists.

The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Mary-Beth has an unusual talent: song reading. She can decode the song that's stuck in someone's head, sort of like a fortune teller or palm reader. The Song Reader's premise is a little odd, but underneath it all is a bittersweet story about love and grief.