Book 26
Tiffiney I loved this one... 2d
KathyWheeler I really enjoyed this book. 2d
Mary Jane | 
Book 26
pickSo most of the adults sucked, but Mary Jane was fantastic!! My #doublespin for December @TheAromaofBooks @StayCurious
pickI‘ve been a fan of Blau for years, and I previously enjoyed this in print, but the #audiobook adds to the fun with music!
Singer Jimmy and star Sheba come to a sleepy Baltimore suburb to get treatment by a local psychiatrist. Mary Jane is hired to care of the doctor‘s daughter and learns a lot about adult life and music while teaching them about domesticity. Some may think it‘s too cute, but it hits the right note of fun and innocence for me.
pan2.5 STARS - Slow moving plot, unlikable and one-dimensional characters (except for MJ and wee Izzy). This book did not live up to its hype and made me very uncomfortable and exasperated in a few spots. Not my cuppa tea at all.
Review: https://bit.ly/MaryJaneReview
My parents got married on this day in 1965. We share a Kindle account & they are voracious readers. I tagged the last book all 3 of us read. Since the start of the pandemic they have sheltered in place in Florida. They only go out to see a dr or pick up groceries. All of our visits have been canceled. This picture is from the last time they came to stay with me. I can't wait to see them again & it breaks my ♥️ that I don't know when that will be.
pickOverall Rating 4¾⭐ | Narration 😍 = Amazing
This is a real feel-good kind of story...
Mary Jane is fourteen years old and coming of age in 1975 with the help of some groovy music, a drug-addicted rock musician who is trying to get clean, a lovable starlet, and a quirky, progressively liberal (for the times) family of three. This for sure gave me some Almost Famous vibes. If you liked Almost Famous, you‘ll probably like this too.
#two4tuesday
1. Beauty and the Beast! Oh, and You‘ve Got Mail! 📚
2. The tagged book. Love the 70s setting! 🎬
If you want to play, consider yourself tagged! 🤗
pickRead Mary Jane and The Final Review of Opal and Nev back to back. Both great reads, though growing up in a very conservative area and getting the chance to expose myself to new ideas and people in my teens, I identified with Mary Jane more than Opal. Loved the music both books evoked!
7-11-21: My 74th finished book of 2021! 1970s Baltimore. Mary Jane is spending the summer as a nanny for the Cone family. From the outside they seem respectable but inside are a mess. Dr. Cone is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer to take care of one patient, a famous rock star. Throughout the summer Mary Jane helps the family maintain some normalcy. This was a cute one. ⭐️⭐️⭐️👍🏼📖#️⃣7️⃣4️⃣
pickI enjoyed this one. I don't usually read "coming of age" stories and I haven't been able to do much reading before falling asleep lately ? but this book was a bit like comfy slippers that I was happy to keep coming back to. Mary Jane is a sheltered 14 year old living in 1970s Baltimore who learns a thing or two when she accepts a summer babysitting job with the Cone family ? ⭐⭐⭐.5
pickPerfect summer read! Mary Jane is a coming of age story set in the mid-70's that lightly touches on some heavy topics. I found it to be both entertaining, hopeful, and at times frustrating. There were points where I laughed out loud and others where I cringed recognizing things from my own upbringing.
so-soA 14-year year old summer nanny learns there is more to life than what her conservative parents have promised. Not much happens and Mary Jane is alternately super naive and wise beyond her years. Imagine: Dirty Dancing with no romance and no lift.
Just like last month, I‘m SO excited for my picks! My #bookspin is the tagged book, and the other is my #doublespin. Let the games begin! 🎆
pickI really loved this book. It made me crave being part of a group. My pandemic circle is too small and not nearly as desirable. Good thing they aren't reading my review... this book was a lot of fun. As for my reading challenge, I'm right in schedule. I need to find my next read. But I think I'll let Mary Jane linger a while. I'm glad my parents weren't squares ❤
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
First sentence and part of the next sentence for shock value. 😲
pickSpending the summer working for the Cone family taking care of their daughter, sheltered Mary Jane comes to realize that every not family is like her own and not every adult shares her parents‘ world view. I was annoyed by Mary Jane in the beginning but overtime was just as charmed by her and her story as everyone else in the book grows to be. A fun and light audiobook with a great narrator.
Library hold is in! Really excited for this one, as I am in need of a light escape. #dogsoflitsy #pitbullsoflitsy #dobby
pickI really liked this coming-of-age story. Mary Jane is 14 in the 1970s, and becomes a summertime nanny for a family that‘s very different from her strait-laced, conservative one. I loved both Mary Jane & Izzie (the child she took care of.) The narrator is excellent too and is especially good at capturing Mary Jane‘s and Izzie‘s voices. There‘s not a lot of plot or action, but the book is still good. I was 14 in the 70s and could relate. #audiowalk
pickI agree with some other reviews I‘ve seen that Mary Jane seems inconsistent- in some scenes she‘s very naive and in others she‘s definitely wise beyond her 14 years.
But overall I thought this was a fun book.
This is my first completed for #LittenListen #audiothon hosted by @aperfectmjk . I had started it before today, so I‘m only counting it for 5 hours since that‘s what was left in it when I started this morning.
Mary Jane is my new #audiowalk book; Dracula is my husband‘s and my road trip book; and I started The Hunting Party while we were at the beach. It was a nice day — a little overcast, so not too hot.
pickMary Jane was annoyingly naive but her discovery of the eye-opening world outside of her shelter life/house was enjoyable.
May Book 24/25 #LitsyLove
so-soI had high hopes for this book. It had so much potential. I connected with Mary Jane and I appreciated her relationship with her young charge. As she lied to her parents for more time away from home, I wondered where this would lead. Where if lead was just okay with me. I‘m glad I read the book, but I was hoping for another Daisy Jones and the Six, which it was not.
I started a new book today. I love how this story is starting. I can relate to being a sheltered girl experiencing the larger word through the world of babysitting. The narrator, Caitlin Kinnunen, is new to me, but perfect for Mary Jane. I have a feeling I‘m going to enjoy this one.
pickThis novel was joy on wheels. I couldn‘t stop laughing at Mary Jane‘s straight-laced upbringing, which wasn‘t dissimilar from my own, and her summer of 75 when she babysits for a hippie psychiatrist‘s child. The doctor happens to be treating a world-famous musician for addiction and his equally famous wife has come to town to stay at the doctor‘s family‘s home. It had me singing the 70s! Despite the MC‘s age, this reads more adult than YA.
pickHere‘s the skinny: This is a sweet coming of age story, set in 1975 suburban Baltimore. Mary Jane takes a summer “gig” as a nanny for a new family in her very straight laced, conservative, Catholic neighborhood. The Cone‘s are very different from Mary Jane‘s family; theirs is a bohemian household filled with laughter, love, music with no rules or boundaries. Mary Jane has the summer she never imagined and an education she‘ll cherish forever👇🏽
#bookmail! This is a favorite author, so I can‘t wait to get to it!
🎧♥️ I‘m LOVING this!! Much better for my current mood/ I‘ve hibernated Souvenir Museum for now #Scribd #NewRelease
pickI absolutely loved this book! My only regret is not reading this book over the summer, as it really would have been the perfect poolside/beach read. Mary Jane is a heartwarming main character, a teen coming of age & learning who she wants to be in the world. When she takes a job nannying for the summer, she never imagined she'd spend the time with a rockstar, famous actress, & a family so different from her own. The characters jump off the page.
pickI love my postal book club! This book wasn‘t even on my radar, but one of the group members sent a groovy ARC as her selection, and I‘m very glad.
Don‘t believe the comparisons to Daisy Jones—this is nothing like that, but it‘s so fun! An amazing coming-of-age story of a privileged, sheltered teen who has an eye-opening summer in the 1970s nannying for a very different sort of family. Not a lot happens, but I loved it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
pickI am pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this coming of age story. Not a whole lot of plot, but quirky characters living in 1970s Baltimore drive this story. I remember daydreaming as a kid about finding a famous person hiding out in my small town and this book follows that unlikely storyline and I was charmed by it.
I am a hot mess, wearing a crazy pandemic outfit with unbrushed hair, stuck in my reading room with this plotless book, starving as I didn‘t have breakfast...with workers outside fixing the floorboards. Thanks to my husband for not telling me they were coming until they were here. 😳 🙏🏻 please please finish and leave so I can come out of my room. 🤣
pickThis one is compared to Daisy Jones and the Six but it has no similarities with it really. Once I got past that I loved this sweet coming of age story.
