Being a novel about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone comes with an explicit content warning, as all good rock ‘n’ roll stories should. It is the tale of Emily Black, a messed up teenager from Carlisle that channels herself through her guitar.

Emily is one of those tortured artist types. When she was just a baby, her mother left her with her father to ‘follow the dream’ and chase the punk scene around the country. Now Emily is a teenager and her mother still has not returned. Although she won’t admit it, Emily is hurting and she’s angry – very angry. She is feisty, cold, incapable of loving, and charged with way too much self-confidence. She’s got a vile mouth and she’s one of those teenagers that get involved in adult things way too early. She lost her virginity at fourteen, she first got drunk at twelve, she smokes, takes drugs and sleeps around.

Emily’s life goal is to make music. She doesn’t have a backup plan because she doesn’t need one; she’s going to make it as a rock star and that’s all there is to it. Luckily her best friend is the best drummer Emily has ever met, and together they’re practically unstoppable. They recruit Tom – a kid from the school band – to play bass and before they know it they’ve got interstate gigs, and people are calling out their names on the street.

Sounds very glamorous and feel-good, right? Wrong. There is nothing feel-good about this novel. Its edgy, hard and I squirmed uncomfortably as I flipped through the pages. As painstaking as that was, I was unable to stop reading. Emily is such an emotionally closed character and her pain weighed heavily on my heart all the way through.

The novel also follows Louisa – Emily’s mother – on her journeys around the country. The victim of a horrible crime, Louisa runs far and wide so she doesn’t have to emotionally process what happened to her. I’m sure many readers will feel sorry for Louisa as they engage in her story, yet I found myself unable to do so. She’s weak, whiny, and cowardly. Her reasons for leaving her family behind are a little pathetic and completely unforgivable.

Kuehnert’s love for music bleeds from the pages of this book. Her knowledge is extensive and her passion is blindingly obvious. As far as debut novels go, this one is pretty spectacular. Kuehnert’s prose is strong and she manipulates the English language like Emily manipulates her guitar: perfectly and poetically. Her characters are vibrant, three dimensional, and complex; and they prove that even bad girls make for excellent literary reads. Relating to Emily was difficult, but empathising with her was not.

If you love music, if you like your books a little on the rusty, edgy side, if you enjoy reading about strong, angsty female characters, then I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone is the novel for you. We give it two very big thumbs up here at yaReads and we can’t wait for whatever comes next from Stephanie Kuehnert.

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This book comes with an extreme tear-jerker warning attached to it. If you spend your entire reading experience blubbering, don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Suffering from leukaemia, sixteen-year-old Tessa only has a few more months left to live. She has compiled a list of ten things she wants to do before she dies. More than anything else she wants to lose her virginity, so her friend Zoey takes her out clubbing one night to see if she can help make Tessa’s wish come true.

As Tessa works her way through her list she meets Adam, her next-door neighbour. On the brink of death, Adam makes Tessa feel more alive than ever before. What could a nineteen-year-old boy possibly see in a dying, cancer-ridden girl? Believe me when I say, more than you think.

Adam’s character is so real, so mature. Readers will fall in love with him from the very first moment he is introduced into the story. He becomes Tessa’s life force as he injects a new enthusiasm, a new desire to live just that little bit longer. Adam’s devotion and attentiveness, his adoration for a dying girl completely restored my faith in teenage boys everywhere.

But don’t be fooled, this is not one of those stories where everything works out in the end. The title itself indicates that Tessa will in fact pass on. I don’t feel like I’m giving away any crucial plot elements by divulging this, if anything, I’m preparing you for the inevitable. And I think that if you approach this book knowing that your beloved protagonist is not going to make it through, her experiences, her emotions and revelations become all the more important.

I cried, I laughed and then I cried some more. Before I Die is a beautifully written tale that readers everywhere will enjoy.

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Powerful. Dramatic. Utterly compelling.

These are the words that come to mind when I think of Jason Myers’ novel, Exit Here. It is the very, very messed up story of nineteen-year-old Travis Wayne. Travis is mixed up in some pretty serious stuff. He’s into all kinds of drugs, drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, he doesn’t work, and he just flunked out of college. Sounds bleak huh? Well, I wish I could say that is the worst of it, but I’d be lying.

There is nothing warm and fuzzy about this read, so if you’re looking for something feel-good, this is the wrong book for you. Yet, it is definitely a novel that I think everyone – teens and parents alike – should experience.

When Travis comes home for the summer, his father hopes he can convince him to go back to school and make another go of it. But as soon as Travis rolls back into town, he falls back into old habits, hanging around his old buddies doing the same old thing: smoking, taking drugs, drinking and taking more drugs. And then there is Laura – Travis’s ex-girlfriend. He desperately wants to get back together with her, but first he needs to figure out what went wrong with them in the first place.

The drug taking in this book goes way beyond the realms of recreational usage, and there are many lessons to be learned from it. It is hard to say whether Travis’s problems arise because he is a heavy drug user, or whether he became a heavy drug user because of his problems. What I like about this positioning, though, is that is forces the reader to try and understand Travis a little more, and about half way through the book I found myself comparing aspects of my own life and my own personality with his. Even though we have very little in common, I can still identify with him on some level.

Because Travis and his friends are ultimately ‘cool’ kids, their drug taking is a little glorified. But make no mistake, Exit Here projects a very clear message that taking drugs leads to all kinds of trouble. Readers just have to watch Travis’s sister’s storyline unfold, or the horrific events that occur as a direct result of Cliff’s – Travis’s best friend – drug abuse. I felt uncomfortable throughout my entire reading experience because I knew, I had a sinking feeling, that Travis and his friends were going to meet a horrible demise.

And I was right.

Exit Here is powerful and compelling because its so believable. While not based on a true story, as the events unfold, the reader can’t help but ask if some small aspect of this story might be true. Travis’s voice is convincing, and at no point in the reading process did I find myself becoming bored with his thoughts, or uninterested in his actions. I recommend this book to all.

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