Real As

Songs That Sound Like Blood by Jared Thomas

Roxy has music in her blood and her soul, but she won't make it very far in her small town. She moves to Adelaide to attend university and starts to figure out who she is and what her place in the world might be.

A lot of YA titles are about The Big Goal, with fantastic and dramatic journeys to get there. It's so nice to find a book that is instead grounded in reality, especially one where the character is allowed to grow at a rate that younger readers would be familiar with. Roxy is very relatable. And this isn't just a story - it's a roadmap, with advice for readers who may not hear it elsewhere.

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