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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 Showtunes 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.

I spent a day thinking about this review because I wasn’t sure what to write–this was such an interesting book, but how did I feel about it?

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It dragged a bit in the middle for me, but not for too long. The characters were engaging enough to keep me reading and to want to know how their lives would turn out. I love how the ending wasn’t perfect for everyone–I appreciate seeing how people overcome their struggles (instead of watching them not struggle at all). At first, I didn’t mind the ending, but the more I thought about it, the sadder I became.

**SPOILER ALERT**

I had a hard time with Izzy’s mom. I understand wanting to chase your dreams and being unhappy in a marriage (we all hit that wall at some point), but she left her husband and broke up her family to go do the same thing she was doing before, but without a husband. That made my heart hurt, and it made me sad for her and Izzy.

Other than that, though, it was entertaining. Not my preferred genre, but a good read.

Rated R for swearing, drinking, drugs, and sex.

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