Rowena’s review of Jesse’s Girl (Hundred Oaks #6) by Miranda Kenneally.
Practice Makes Perfect.
Everyone at Hundred Oaks High knows that career mentoring day is a joke. So when Maya Henry said she wanted to be a rock star, she never imagined she’d get to shadow the Jesse Scott, Nashville’s teen idol.
But spending the day with Jesse is far from a dream come true. He’s as gorgeous as his music, but seeing all that he’s accomplished is just a reminder of everything Maya’s lost: her trust, her boyfriend, their band, and any chance to play the music she craves. Not to mention that Jesse’s pushy and opinionated. He made it on his own, and he thinks Maya’s playing back up to other people’s dreams. Does she have what it takes to follow her heart—and go solo?
This series is one of those series that I will probably read until the very last book (and there’s two more books coming, woot!). These books are comfort stories for me. They’re about characters with real problems and real dreams and Miranda Kenneally does a great job of telling stories that readers can enjoy and introducing characters that they’ll can connect with.
Jesse’s Girl follows Mya Henry, Sam Henry’s younger sister (Sam in the love interest in Book 1) as she meets and falls in with Country Music Superstar, Jesse Scott. For some reason, I was thinking of Hunter Hayes as Jesse Scott when I was reading this book.
Anyway, it’s time for career mentoring at Hundred Oaks High School and Mya Henry wants to be a musician. She thought she would spend time at like a record store but when she finds out that she’ll be shadowing country music star Jesse Scott, she’s excited…until she meets him, finds out he’s kind of a douche and walks out. Jesse of course thinks that Mya is probably another groupie, only around to use him to get famous or whatever so when he finds out that Mya is a legit musician, he grudgingly agrees to help Mya out. Oh, the link between the big superstar celebrity and Hundred Oaks High School is Jesse’s uncle is the principal at Mya’s school. He’s doing this as a favor to his uncle.
Both characters are surprised at how well their career mentoring has gone. Mya wants a real shadow day, filled with anything and everything Jesse can teach her about music and crafting her music to make something of herself in the business. Jesse isn’t sure what he wants at first but over the course of the book, you realize that he needs a friend. Someone that likes him without any strings attached. You see him struggle with trying to accept that Mya can be that person for him, if he’ll let her.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought Kenneally did a great job of making me fall in love with these two young kids that are just starting to dream and reach for the stars. Jesse wants things money can’t buy and Mya’s dreams are too expensive to reach for but with a little bit of hope and a lot of hard work, you really see these two grow into themselves.
My favorite part of this book was probably Mya. I enjoyed seeing her grow into that girl in the end. She’s a survivor. She survived betrayal, the paparazzi, crazy Jesse Scott fangirls, money woes and she came out on top in the end. I really liked seeing her with Jesse, with her best friend Dave and with her family. She may not have been rich but she led a rich life. I liked that she knew she was lucky to have the love of family and I really liked that she wanted to share all of that with Jesse.
Jesse was hard to take at first because he was so suspicious of everyone. I understood why he was the way that he was, I mean, I can’t imagine that it would be easy to live your life under a microscope but I really liked the young man he grew into as the story progressed. I really liked the young man he came to be for Mya. Once he let go of the worries and the drama, I liked the way he was with Mya. Their romance was sweet and it rang true and it was everything that I have come to love about this series. I can’t wait for more!
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Sourcebooks Fire. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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