Title: Wildflower
Author: Alecia Whitaker
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA Contemporary
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Release Date: July 1st 2014
Publisher: Poppy
Source: ARC provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

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The best songs come from broken hearts.

Sixteen-year-old Bird Barrett has grown up on the road, singing backup in her family's bluegrass band, and playing everywhere from Nashville, Tennesee to Nowhere, Oklahoma. One fateful night, Bird fills in for her dad by singing lead, and a scout in the audience offers her a spotlight all her own.

Soon Bird is caught up in a whirlwind of songwriting meetings, recording sessions, and music video shoots. Her first single hits the top twenty, and suddenly fans and paparazzi are around every corner. She's even caught the eye of her longtime crush, fellow roving musician Adam Dean. With Bird's star on the rise, though, tradition and ambition collide. Can Bird break out while staying true to her roots?

In a world of glamour and gold records, a young country music star finds her voice.


I will be very honest about this book. I am on the fence on whether I enjoyed it or not. I read it very quickly, just over 3 hours, but I still can't really decide how I feel about it. So I guess I will start with things that I liked about the book. The music. This was the best part for me. seeing the behind the scenes of how an artist is discovered ad the process to making them into a star. I also loved that the main character, Bird (I really did not like this name, was very distracting for me), write her won songs and was very close with her family. The family aspect of this book was great to read. The dynamic between parents and siblings seemed very real, especially since Bird was the only one getting recognized for her music and no one else. I found that part to be great to read.

Now. as for the aspect I did not like that much. Bird herself at times was hard to read because I found her to be very naive and infuriating to read at times. I know she is a teenager and from a small town therefore she might not know some things, but seriously? Sometimes I thought it was a little over the top. Her obsession or crush on fellow musician Adam Dean was a bit too much for me. It got to a point where I wanted to scream at her to just tell him how you feel! Just talk to him! Because their relationship, if you could even call it that was very young and to be honest the end result of their attraction was very frustrating for me as a reader. They just ended it without really talking to each other and I wanted more. So much more. And speaking of frustrating, the end. There was little to no closure for me. It just ends without us seeing the end result of all of Bird's hard work. What happened to the album, was it a success, how did the family react? All of these things were left in teh air and it left me feeling less than satisfied.

Overall this book was entertaining and illuminating as to the process of becoming a music star. But in the end I did not connect very well with any of the character and i felt like there were some parts that were severely underdeveloped and could have used more exploring. I was very underwhelmed by this read.