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The Girl Who Became a Beatle Greg Taylor Books

Download As PDF : The Girl Who Became a Beatle Greg Taylor Books

The Girl Who Became a Beatle Greg Taylor Books

As I am always curious to read books that involve music in the plot, this book caught my attention. At first I thought the book was about a girl whose fairy godmother brings her back to the 1960's so she could become the fifth Beatle. (That would have been an awesome premise for a novel!) Soon into the book, I realized the story was different than I expected.

When it comes to novels, I will forgive a lot if the main character's passions stir an interest within me. In this book, Regina's love of the Beatles and the many references to their music (from playing their songs as her own to creating a music video using ideas from the movie A Hard Days Night) that were made throughout the novel, left me putting down my Kindle to search for Beatles songs I haven't heard in ages and re-watched a couple Beatles movies. I loved that.

While there is a minor love story woven into the book, the majority of the plot follows Regina as she makes a wish and then gets to live it out. It's a classic premise we've all read in books or seen in movies. With a wish granted come problems the main character never thought would come with living out a dream.

The lesson in a story like this is always, "Be grateful for what you have". I liked that author didn't go overboard to make this point by making Regina's wished-for world so awful that, of course, she would return to normal life being that much more aware and grateful than she was before. While Regina encountered her fair share of drama, the thing I appreciated about this story is that her rock star life was really cool and she made the most of it.

One of the most important parts of the book was the evolution of Regina finding (and trusting) her own voice. I thought it was quite clever for the author to have Regina immerse herself so much into the music of, all bands, The Beatles. Who wouldn't think their talent was less than compared to them? The best moment of the book was when Regina takes the risk of leaving The Beatles music behind and is a changed person because of it.

The one gripe I have with this book is with Regina's personality. While I wouldn't say she is unlikable, she often came across as cold. I get that she was focused on her band and was dealing with family issues--all things that were stressing her out--but, while other characters came across as more grounded and calm, her intensity made it a kind of difficult to root for her.

While this wasn't a book that stayed with me long after I read it, I still enjoyed it. I thought the idea for the story was a good one and the takeaway lessons were well executed.


Tags : Amazon.com: The Girl Who Became a Beatle (9780312652593): Greg Taylor: Books,Greg Taylor,The Girl Who Became a Beatle,Feiwel & Friends,0312652593,Fame;Fiction.,Rock music;Fiction.,Space and time;Fiction.,Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction,Children: Young Adult (Gr. 10-12),Fame,Fiction,Juvenile Fiction Fantasy & Magic,Performing Arts - Music,Performing Arts Music,Rock music,Space and time,YOUNG ADULT FICTION,Young Adult Fiction Performing Arts Music

The Girl Who Became a Beatle Greg Taylor Books Reviews

Reason for Reading Simply enough, the Beatles connection appealed to me.

This is a modern day fairy tale. Regina Bloomsbury, ultra-major Beatles fan & collector has her own band, aptly named The Caverns. The Caverns are about to fall apart at the seams and Regina wishes she were as famous as The Beatles one night in bed. The next morning she awakes to find herself the lead singer of The Caverns, an explosive new band on the scene, up for 8 Grammy nominations. Regina is famous and has the life that comes with it but, you see, as her Fairy Godmother explains in an email no one could ever be as famous as The Beatles so she erased them from history and gave all their songs to Regina. So she is famous, but her first album, Meet The Caverns, is full of Beatles songs attributed to her. While Regina gets comfortable with the perks of being famous, including a famous TV star boyfriend, she also discovers the downside of how stardom can change people. None of her band is friendly with her, in fact there is open hostility with one member. Regina discovers that not only does she have a reputation as a diva she has also badly hurt the feelings of the one band member who meant the most to her back in her former life. But as Regina starts to find out a girl could get used to a life of fame and fortune and she has a week to decide if she will stay in her new life or go back to the old.

A good story. All The Beatles trivia and history is fun and I found myself humming songs as they were mentioned while I was reading. While being a fantasy the book isn't overloaded with typical fantasy elements such as magic but follows more along the lines of magical realism. One does have to suspend reality to enter and except Regina's world. The Girl Who Became a Beatle is also a coming-of-age story as Regina learns some life lessons, makes decisions based on decency rather than personal gratification and ultimately realizes that her life is not only about her, that others are affected by her actions as well. On the surface a fun, often humorous fairytale that we all would like to have that one wish granted but the book has a lot of deeper layers that deal with growing up and maturity. A fine read.
WARNING This book does not contain The Beatles. This is more like "The Girl Who Became a Pop Diva". She gets wish fulfillment for no real reason, has typical band problems, wants to be a leader and no one likes her for it. She starts getting bossy, but experiences no consequences. She starts out liking a boy, but then life becomes too perfect. In her alternate universe, she has a boyfriend from "The O.C.", creative control, a $12 million mansion, a life in L.A. instead of podunk midwest, Grammys, sellout crowds, and fame & fortune. Nothing goes wrong for her.

I wanted this to be about The Beatles. I thought it would be about a teen experiencing their history, growing up in the fifties, struggling from dive bars to the Ed Sullivan show to Beatlemania and drugs and Yoko and the break-up. Like John or Paul's POV but transformed into current day YA form.

Instead, she just takes their songs, which makes no sense. Songs written in the fifties have no place in today's context. Can you imagine "I Want to Hold Your Hand" going up against Ke$ha and Lady Gaga? The way it's written, The Beatles are just placeholders. It could have been any band -- Nirvana, Green Day, Metallica.

And the ending is not earned. She spends 90% of her time living an awesome rock star life, and there's no evidence that she wants a change back, or that a change back would be good for her. And of course, she does. Because its expected of her. Gotta have that Disney ending.
As I am always curious to read books that involve music in the plot, this book caught my attention. At first I thought the book was about a girl whose fairy godmother brings her back to the 1960's so she could become the fifth Beatle. (That would have been an awesome premise for a novel!) Soon into the book, I realized the story was different than I expected.

When it comes to novels, I will forgive a lot if the main character's passions stir an interest within me. In this book, Regina's love of the Beatles and the many references to their music (from playing their songs as her own to creating a music video using ideas from the movie A Hard Days Night) that were made throughout the novel, left me putting down my to search for Beatles songs I haven't heard in ages and re-watched a couple Beatles movies. I loved that.

While there is a minor love story woven into the book, the majority of the plot follows Regina as she makes a wish and then gets to live it out. It's a classic premise we've all read in books or seen in movies. With a wish granted come problems the main character never thought would come with living out a dream.

The lesson in a story like this is always, "Be grateful for what you have". I liked that author didn't go overboard to make this point by making Regina's wished-for world so awful that, of course, she would return to normal life being that much more aware and grateful than she was before. While Regina encountered her fair share of drama, the thing I appreciated about this story is that her rock star life was really cool and she made the most of it.

One of the most important parts of the book was the evolution of Regina finding (and trusting) her own voice. I thought it was quite clever for the author to have Regina immerse herself so much into the music of, all bands, The Beatles. Who wouldn't think their talent was less than compared to them? The best moment of the book was when Regina takes the risk of leaving The Beatles music behind and is a changed person because of it.

The one gripe I have with this book is with Regina's personality. While I wouldn't say she is unlikable, she often came across as cold. I get that she was focused on her band and was dealing with family issues--all things that were stressing her out--but, while other characters came across as more grounded and calm, her intensity made it a kind of difficult to root for her.

While this wasn't a book that stayed with me long after I read it, I still enjoyed it. I thought the idea for the story was a good one and the takeaway lessons were well executed.