Another Little Piece of My Heart by Tracey Martin

What if your devastating break-up became this summer's hit single? In this rock-and-roll retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, music can either bring you together or tear you apart.

At her dying mother's request, Claire dumps Jared, the only boy she's ever loved. Left with a broken family and a broken heart, Claire is furious when she discovers that her biggest regret became Jared's big break. While Jared is catapulted into rock-star status, another piece of Claire's heart crumbles every time his song plays on the radio.

The summer after her senior year, it's been months since the big break-up, and Claire is just trying to keep her head down and make it through a tense trip to the beach with her family. But when Jared shows up, and old feelings reignite, can Claire and Jared let go of the past? Or will they be stuck singing the same old refrain?

The blurb totally got my attention for reviewing this book.  I'm a sucker for modern re-tellings of my favorite old books- especially Jane Austen.  The other thing that really got me was the music aspect of this book.  I love books that involve music.

The music was definitely my favorite thing about this book.  I love how feelings, memories and situations all revolved around music.  I'm sure we all have songs that when we hear them take us right back to a certain moment.  There are songs that remind me of people and places and feelings I had.  I love music.  It is so powerful and can evoke such emotion.  The emotions, events and people in this book are all interwoven in music for Claire and Jared.  I loved that the most about this book.

Of course, misunderstanding is a key player in this book.  Claire breaks up with Jared to please her mother and regrets it every day.  Jared doesn't understand and uses his music to vent his feelings.  Misunderstanding leads to hurt.  I enjoyed Claire's maturing in the book.  She learns along the way and starts figuring out what Claire wants and how best to get go about getting it.  The moments I enjoyed the most were when Claire becomes emotionally vulnerable and puts herself out there to succeed or fail- knowing it could go either way but still trying.

The things that I didn't like about this book were the swearing (including the F word, multiple times), the underage drinking and drug use, and the casual references to sex.  There was no open sexual situations in this book, just talk about them happening (or not).  I'm just personally not a fan of these things in YA books.  This book would have been just as good (well, better in my opinion) if those things were kept out.

My thanks to Harlequin Teen for allowing me to read and review for them.  You can find this book at the Harlequin Teen website or at Amazon.