Headliner

Franny Calaghan wishes she had nothing to be worried about aside from grades, clothes and boys. But ever since her big brother Mike died in a bus accident, Franny finds herself barely hanging on to the threads of an old life as she watches her family unravel: a mother who never leaves her bedroom, a father and sister who are never around, and friends who don’t seem to understand what she’s going through. When Franny decides to go to the concert of her late brother’s favorite band, she is hoping for more than just enjoyment; she’s looking for a clue on how to heal her broken family, even if she herself doesn’t know it yet.

Headliner is a solid story about the nature of grief, how it affects different people and the scars it leaves behind on those who experience it. Author Susan White does an excellent job of providing readers with an in-depth look of what it can be like when you feel you have nowhere to turn to, no one to talk to and no way to fix your circumstance. There is no changing death, and this is a theme that is prevalent throughout the book. Franny’s frustration with her mother’s apathy and father’s absence becomes a frustration that readers fully embrace and demands the turning of each page only to see if things will ever get better for Franny. Her inner thoughts on all the things she wishes to say and do also work as a mechanism to keep readers engaged as it becomes an expectation for catharsis.

While the book picks up a good pace about halfway through, the beginning is a little repetitive, with extremely detailed descriptions of Franny’s mundane routine which, albeit important to getting a sense of what her life is like, become exhausting to read through over and over again. The book would have benefitted from a more determined goal at the start so readers don’t feel as if they’re following an aimless story. Once Franny begins to take action, the story becomes very engaging, and her journey from the concert to home is one that is very fleshed out. The book resolves too fast, however, saving far too many emotional breakthroughs for eight or nine pages with characters over exposing their emotions all at once, and the resolution feels completely unrealistic and uncharacteristic for the pacing of the story thus far.

Franny, while often involved in activities every teenager can relate to, can often be identified as someone written by a person who does not come in contact with teenagers often. The fact that she orders a movie by phone and has zero contact with the internet make her feel so unrealistic as a teenager written in 2018 that it takes away from the enjoyment of the story. Her ease to speak of some things teenagers would take months, even years to admit, also seems like a quick resolution to a complex issue, and it does not fit the slow, introspective tone of the book at all.

Headliner was an enjoyable read, one that pulls readers right into the complicated process of grief. It gets a little preachy at times and could have benefitted from a more accurate portrayal of a teenage girl and a slower, more deliberate ending where everything isn’t tied neatly in a bow all at once, but it is an emotional story that really makes readers, especially young ones, consider the nature of their problems.