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Book Review of The Girl Who Became a Beatle

The Girl Who Became a Beatle
amichai avatar reviewed on + 368 more book reviews


I hated this book. There, I said it. What pablum! - predictable, preachy, derivative. Bleah. When I first heard about it I thought an alternate reality in which a girl was one of The Beatles could be a really interesting thing. We'd start off in Liverpool, England.... No. This girl is a 2011 suburban/small town American girl who wants to be as "famous" as The Beatles. So Beatle-ness is mainly defined by products bought and fan behavior. Oh, there are people who will like this book, because it is a "make a wish" magic-in-a-teenager's-life kind of book. And maybe just getting a couple of real Beatles' songs in their heads by reading about them will make this book tolerable to some. But not anybody with much of a sense of history. The main character may as well have wished to be any current pop star, as far as I'm concerned. And the fairy godmother-ish figure is much too reminiscent of some mediocre movie from the last decade or two(I won't say which, since it is a plot point.) Grrr. What a disappointment!