A review by taliac36
Notes from an Accidental Band Geek by Erin Dionne
well dis book is abt a freshman named Elsie Wyat.... her mom worries about Elsie’s every breath; her classical musician-superstar dad doesn’t notice her successes; she’s a year younger than everyone else in her class; and thanks to her extreme schedule and over-confident attitude, she has no friends. bt she’s good at The French horn. She’s so good that she’s sure she can get into the summer music program of her dreams…but first she has to survive a season of marching band.
And that’s not going to be easy: French horns aren’t marching instruments, individual stardom doesn’t count, and everyone looks bad in a polyester uniform. As Elsie stumbles through the season from disaster to disaster, she not only learns what a “chicken” is (and why you should never drop one), how to march in a parade block, and what it takes to escape from a bus bathroom, but how to make friends, deal with overprotective parents, and maybe even launch a romance.
Just as Elsie starts to reconcile her elitist orchestral misconceptions with band geek reality and change her attitude, her world gets rocked again. When marching in a nationally televised parade, Elsie’s disasters collide with those of three other characters, culminating in an epic holiday calamity that could ruin everything she’s worked so hard for.
And that’s not going to be easy: French horns aren’t marching instruments, individual stardom doesn’t count, and everyone looks bad in a polyester uniform. As Elsie stumbles through the season from disaster to disaster, she not only learns what a “chicken” is (and why you should never drop one), how to march in a parade block, and what it takes to escape from a bus bathroom, but how to make friends, deal with overprotective parents, and maybe even launch a romance.
Just as Elsie starts to reconcile her elitist orchestral misconceptions with band geek reality and change her attitude, her world gets rocked again. When marching in a nationally televised parade, Elsie’s disasters collide with those of three other characters, culminating in an epic holiday calamity that could ruin everything she’s worked so hard for.