Stephanie Kuehnert’s debut novel, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, is a painfully honest, raw, heart-wrenching story about a mother who is running from guilt and a daughter who just wants to bring her home.
Emily Black has grown up without a mother. Her mother, Louisa, left Emily and her father, Michael, when Emily was an infant. Her father has always told her that Louisa left to follow the music, to find the next great thing. He raised Emily on music. They listened to records and he taught her to play the guitar, and when she got to be old enough, Emily and her best friend Regan, spent every night they could at a local club where they heard great music (and did other things that her father would have stopped if he’d known about them).
When she got older, Emily figured the only way to bring Louisa home, if she were following the music, was to be the next great thing. And so Emily and her band, She Laughs, stop being spectators and start actually playing the music, hoping all the while that it will bring her mother back to her, not knowing the reasons Louisa left are far deeper and more complicated than what she’s been told.
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone is a brilliant first novel about music and life and love and family and friendship and growing up. It follows both women–Emily and Louisa–as they both try to deal with their separation, with never having known each other. Both stories are told from a distance, Emily’s in first-person and Louisa’s in third. It feels kind of like both stories are being told after the fact, being looked back on from some indeterminate later point.
This is an unputdownable book. I really could not stop reading! It’s so real and emotional and it really just blew me away. In I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, Stephanie Kuehnert creates wonderful, believable characters, and gives readers a fascinating glimpse into the punk rock scene as Emily is living it. This is at times a hard book to read because Stephanie Kuehnert is able to make readers really feel the book, and there are some real, serious, painful things happening.
Stephanie Kuehnert is an unbelievably talented writer. Her debut is a smart, touching, intense and emotional novel that readers will absolutely love. It will be released in July, at which point I suggest you get your copy immediately. It’s certainly a new favorite of mine!
March 8, 2008 at 11:37 am
Ooh…I want to read this, thanks to your awesome review. ;)
March 8, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Ooh, it sounds amazing. I’m a HUGE music fan and music in a novel along with dramay stuff = perfect book. Even if it didn’t have music, I’d probably read it. You usually don’t rave about books unless they are that amazing. :)
March 8, 2008 at 2:25 pm
This sounds amazing! hard to wait…
March 8, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Ha I love your reviews. This sounds like a book I might read… although I’m sure there are a ton of obscure music mentions that I just wouldn’t get because I’m so mainstream, lol.
March 8, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I’m so glad it resonated with you like this! Thanks for the amazing review, which is my very first review, so you totally made my day!
March 8, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I can’t wait to read this book!! :) Great review, Jocelyn!
March 8, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I can’t wait to read it either!
March 8, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Awesome review!! I can’t wait to read the book either. It looks amazing and this review makes me want to read it even more then I already did.
March 9, 2008 at 12:17 am
I read an excerpt from the 1st chapter– which is available at the author’s web site– and I have to agree Ms Kuehnert breaks out with a 1st novel that reeks with authenticity & puts you into the lives of characters you really care about.
http://www.stephaniekuehnert.comfirst_book.html
March 10, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Excellent review, Jocelyn. I also couldn’t put this book down!
Vanessa
March 12, 2008 at 4:49 pm
[…] writing process, young adult | Stephanie Kuehnert is the rather brilliant author of I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, a book I absolutely adored! From the comments on my review, it looks like quite a few of you are […]
July 10, 2008 at 5:03 am
[…] book has already received raves from Bust, YABC, and Teen Book Review, as well as an extensive review from the L.A. Times that describes the writing as “punk on […]
November 26, 2008 at 7:58 pm
[…] about a mother who is running from guilt and a daughter who just wants to bring her home.” I loved it. It’s great for music lovers, and just people who enjoy a good […]
November 20, 2018 at 12:04 am
[…] I also enjoyed — more painfully — I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone. I have to admit that I had to put it down a couple of times, because… it hurt, frankly. Living your life looking for the person who was supposed to love you the most — and then picking yourself up and regrouping, and realizing that you can love the ones your with, for real? Is wrenching, and pretty deep. Read Jocelyn’s review. […]