Three main sub­jects are at the heart of Jen­nifer Wein­er’ lat­est nov­el: moth­er­hood, sis­ter­hood, and music.

In the ear­ly 2000s, sis­ters Zoe and Cassie share a mod­est room, go to school togeth­er, and sing togeth­er. Despite their close­ness, they are very dif­fer­ent from one anoth­er; poised and socia­ble Zoe looks out for awk­ward lon­er Cassie and gives her con­stant pep talks. Zoe wish­es to be a beloved star in the pop music world. Cassie has a unique musi­cal gift that she tries to keep pri­vate. She receives a schol­ar­ship to train in clas­si­cal music at a top con­ser­va­to­ry and finds her place in that world, most con­tent when she’s focused on playing.

Rus­sell D’Angelo is a thought­ful song­writer and musi­cian who brings out the sis­ters’ tal­ents. They become a band with the addi­tion of a cou­ple of oth­er play­ers. Grad­u­al­ly, they begin climb­ing the lad­der to fame in a busi­ness that is known to be cut­throat, par­tic­u­lar­ly to women. The sis­ters vie for Russel’s atten­tion, at first only musi­cal­ly and then roman­ti­cal­ly as well. This leads to dishar­mo­ny among all those involved with the indi­vid­u­als and the band.

Fast-for­ward to Zoe being an unequipped, reluc­tant moth­er to Cher­ry. Zoe is mar­ried to the hand­some, sta­ble Jor­dan, and tries to man­age their blend­ed fam­i­ly. But Cher­ry can’t abide Jordan’s son, whose dis­turb­ing behav­ior almost always evades detec­tion. She grows up to be inde­pen­dent, seek­ing a music career of her own while know­ing noth­ing about her mother’s past or about her aunt’s exis­tence. Like her moth­er, she is moti­vat­ed and relent­less. One day she grabs an oppor­tu­ni­ty to run away and try her luck at fame.

Through­out the nov­el there are nos­tal­gic men­tions of all kinds of music, espe­cial­ly pop music from Zoe and Cassie’s teen years in the ear­ly aughts through Cherry’s in the cur­rent day. Rus­sel has an ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of lyrics and music that he shares with Cassie. The read­er learns much about the luck and momen­tum of the seem­ing­ly glitzy music busi­ness. The author also por­trays the inner life of some­one on the spec­trum, describ­ing Cassie’s lone­li­ness and inabil­i­ty to con­form to the “‘norm.” Cassie’s char­ac­ter speaks for so many who are mis­un­der­stood and whose tal­ents can be eas­i­ly passed over or missed. This book is com­pul­sive­ly read­able and suit­able for both teens and adults.