Outside Reading Book Essay

For my outside reading book, I read The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker. The genre of the book is realistic fiction. This book is about two girls living in a small town in the south. One with the gift of song reading, or telling people's emotions by the songs that are stuck in their heads. Mary Beth is the talented older sister, taking care of her younger sister, Leanne, after the death of their mother, and the abandonment of their father. But one lady named Holly comes to Mary Beth for elp. She is a very depressed woman, so Mary Beth figures out. She is told to confront her father about her molestation that he had done to er years back when she was a child. This is the reason for her depression. But her being as depressed as she was, she decides to try to commit a suicide attempt. She lives, but the result? A coma. And then Mary beth becomes depressed because everyone blames the accident on her. Meanwhile, Leanne is just trying to survive her teen years, upset by Mary Beth's depression, and trying to reconnect with her father who has now come back after years of being gone. She's also trying to have a relationship with Mike, Holly's son. In the end, Holly comes out of her coma, Mary Beth is no longer depressed, and Leanne goes to prom with Mike.

A quote about the book from the back of the book is "An achingly beautiful and bittersweet tale."

by John Dufreshe. I agree with this quote because there are many good and bad moments in the book.

This book was written in first person. Everything besides the dialogue is in Leann's point of view. She is the one who is telling the story.I would say that there is definitely more narrative in the story than dialogue. The writing style in this bookis similar to the kind in The Pearl because there is only dialogue when something important is being said or described.

A quote from the book is on page one of chapter one. It says "(song reading) is kind of like palm reading, but instead of using people's hands, she used music to read people's lives." I picked this quote because it is describing song reading from Leann's point of view.

I really liked this book and I would totally read another book by the same author. We both have interests in music, so we are similar. I can relate to Leann, how she's just a regular teen growing up, dealing with boys. I could totally see us being friends. I enjoyed reading this book and would/will recomend it to anyone!