NOT EXACTLY A ROCK STAR

Future rock star or friendless misfit? That is no choice at all. In this debut tween novel, twelve-year-old Apple grapples with being different, friends & backstabbers, and following her dreams. For fans of Wendy Mass and Wendelin van Draanen.

Apple has always felt a little different from her classmates. She and her mother moved to America from the Philippines when she was little, and her mother still cooks Filippino foods, speaks broken English, and chastises Apple for becoming “too American.” But it becomes unbearable in eighth grade, when the boys—the stupid, stupid boys—in Apple’s class put her name on the Dog Log, the list of the most unpopular girls in school.

When Apple’s friends turn on her and everything about her life starts to seem weird and embarrassing, Apple turns to music. If she can just save enough to buy a guitar and learn to play, maybe she can change herself. It might be the music that saves her . . . or it might be her two new friends, who show how special she really is.

Erin Entrada Kelly deftly brings Apple’s conflicted emotions to the page in her debut novel about friendship, popularity, and going your own way.

Erin Kelly’s fiction has appeared in dozens of print and online journals worldwide. She was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award and the Philippines Free Press Award for Short Fiction and currently serves as staff editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles.