Street Song

Dublin is where Street Song starts, but is very much based in Belfast, and as such shows off the vibrancy and atmosphere of modern-day Belfast, making it one of the stars of the book. Street Song follows a hypothesis of what happens after. After all the vacuous nonsense that makes up being a viral sensation, having your fifteen minutes of fame, and what next? It’s the headline that’s never written, in this case the tale of how RyLee figures out what he’s supposed to do with the next part of his life.

Music obviously plays a big part in Street Song too, with Sheena herself clearly having a passion for the feel and sound of music, and having learned guitar specifically for this book. The musical chemistry between Toni, Ryan (as Cal) and their bandmate Marysia is great to read about. It’s the one thing that Ryan feels comfortable doing and knows he’s good and the passages on playing music on stage and rehearsing are full of that energy and enthusiasm.

Sheena’s great strength again in Street Song, as in previous books, is in writing dialogue. She manages to incorporate various accents, most notably strong Belfast ones, while managing to show Ryan’s initial confusion and then liking of all the accents. In keeping with this, Sheena mentions the ever-present political backdrop, but perhaps wisely doesn’t get distracted from the main narrative. This seems to be a prevailing trend, as people of the Rory McIlroy generation move on from what happened years ago, and refuse to let it define them. So while the element of politics and the volatile past of Belfast are both present, Ryan’s struggle with staying clean and keeping a roof over his head are of much more concern to him.

Along with themes of substance and other abuses, Sheena Wilkinson also tackles the issue of homelessness and in particular the attitude of people towards homeless people. While Ryan’s money woes become increasingly worrying, he begins to think about sleeping rough and it gives an insight into how someone might find themselves homeless. The main message here is that every person is a person, to paraphrase Dr Seuss, and in this case, we’ve had the time to get to know Ryan and can understand his plight. That shouldn’t make us blind to the situations of thousands of other people who find themselves saddled with similar status.

There’s a lot of light touches throughout however, particularly with the adult characters in Ryan’s life, like Toni’s mother and Mervyn who runs the hostel Ryan stays in. This gives us a chance to see Ryan try to charm his way out of trouble, invariably channelling the charm of his popstar alter-ego ‘RyLee.’ There’s a great back and forth between the bandmates throughout as well, and it’s always great to see strong female characters in the narrative. Toni refuses to be defined by boys or her mother. She is determined to be a success in music and in her studies, but hasn’t managed to get out of her mother’s shadow just yet. She is clear on her own morals and her friendship with Marysia is particularly empowering, independent as it is from their relationship with Ryan. They support each other and look out for each other, which is of course brilliant to see in any friendship.

I was fortunate enough to have a sneak preview reading of an extract from Street Song by Sheena in February and was looking forward to reading it since. Another great YA book from a talented author.

Aside from some young adult content, this would be appropriate for middle school kids. Because of the older content, however, I will recommend it to my high schoolers. The story was very real, and very raw. It was easy to get into and relate to several of the main characters. The theme and character lesson from the story was subtle, but effective.

Street Song by Sheena Wilkinson is a young adult novel that is scheduled to be released on April 20, 2017 by Black and White Publishing. The setting is Dublin and Belfast, which adds to the plot line and characters of the story. Wilkinson does an outstanding job in creating characters with real life problems and showing how they deal with them. I think this story really deals with the effects that can come after fifteen minutes of fame and what comes next. I really love that music plays a big part of this story because I am a huge music lover. The author uses this love for music to help Rylee (Ryan) find comfort and security with someone who helps him overcome his hardships. Toni is the main reason for the change in Ryan for the better. I really enjoyed reading this young adult novel and look forward to reading more from this author.

I really like the blurb, “When life goes off key, change your tune.”

The story, though I can’t testify if this happenning to some showbiz people in real life, rings true..

How proud must RyLee to himself when he knows he can stand up from how deep he’s on the ground.

If I were his mom? I would be proud.. How hard was it to live in the street when you are used to living in luxury.. And be sad..even heartbroken at the same time..😔

The story evolves on RyLee or Cal getting up from rock bottom stage of his life, how did he found true friends…

Tony’s mom rock!!👊I love her tough love…

Though story description piqued my curiosity, it didn’t meet my expectation.. But still a quick good read though.. ☺

Going to review this one my youtube channel after it comes out.

I received an arc of this book from Netgalley and Black & White Publishing in exchange for a fair an honest review.
I’ve never read anything by this author before and I thought the description was intriguing so I requested it. In short, this book has a very YA sounding premise but it deals with very heavy subject matter. This didn’t read like YA to me it almost veers to New Adult in some ways. I did enjoy the main character, Ryan and his struggles and by the end of it he’s shown significant growth in terms of things.
Overall, great read, the author gives you a typical headline as a premise but it’s a heavy read and delves into something that might not be even thought of by media standards.

3.5 stars

I really loved the concept of this book but for me it felt a bit heavy. I think more then the topic of the book it was the author writing style. I could totally see this as a movie, those British movies that the film colors are dark (more Grays than colors).

Like I said this had a great topic, I love reading about musicians. I love how things developed, I love the pace but maybe the author writing style wasn't for me.