True Blue

by Sigmund Brouwer

Elle is on the road as an opening act for Johnny James, the biggest star in country music. Touring is everything she's ever dreamed of, but it has unexpected crazy fans, jealous backup singers, weird rules on the tour bus. But when something goes terribly wrong during a performance, Elle struggles to figure out how she can make things right with her fans, her father, her record company and with her friend Webb.

True Blue continues the story that began in Billboard Express .

Genres: Teen

128 pages, Paperback

Published January 16, 2018

About the author

Sigmund loves going to schools to get kids excited about reading, reaching roughly 80,000 students a year through his Rock&Roll Literacy Show.

Reviews

[Ta || bookishbluehead · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starting ‘True Blue’ I didn’t know what to expect. It’s a book about a girl, whose dream is to become a famous singer. And she’s touring as the opening act for one of the most famous country singers, Johnny James.

I didn’t like the writing, it wasn’t my style. It didn’t have flow and the sentences felt choppy. The story was short and it felt crammed with all the problems Elle has to face. The pressure of touring and her voice suffering because of it, her shitty father and management, who want to make her something she isn’t and make a single of the song she likes least on her album, her unrequited love for her friend and last, but not least, her bulimia. It was just way too much and didn’t seem like enough time to really go into these problems, and even less to resolve those problems. What troubled me the most was how the bulimia thing was resolved. One conversation with a stranger and there’s no problem there at all. That’s not how it goes and I think this will give a bad example to a younger audience. For me it really downplayed a serious issue of mental health.