Review: Molly Anne Goes on the Road
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 13, 2014
Molly Anne is born and grows up in the wrong place -- she is made for the American west coast 'live and let live' lifestyle.  She chafes under the expectations she faces as a young woman in Athens, Georgia -- the need to be ladylike, keep her hair blond, wear dresses and pearls, marry well.  Her mother resists her need to be different, as if her strong will can change her daughter.  Molly is pretty and has a size 2 figure.  She wears black jeans and tank tops, has a nose ring and nipple rings, dyes her hair black and purple and wears those giant earlobe hole rings that look distractingly painful.  She has no friends and has had a string of one-night boyfriends.  It is heartbreaking that a likable rebel has had such a hard go of her childhood and teenage years.When she is 26, the night after her sister's wedding, Molly packs two suitcases and her guitar, Simon, and moves to Seattle.  The one part of Athens she enjoyed was singing once a week at the local coffeehouse, but that gig won't pay her rent. She hopes she will have more luck -- and find more people like her -- in the music scene in the Emerald City.Her parents object -- they freeze her bank account and hide her car, both of which they are co-signers on -- and Molly does her best to soldier on, finding a job, screening their calls and texts, and starting her new life.I hear about young people who have lots of energy and skip college and think: is it dyslexia?  Is it ADD?  She certainly is smart and capable.  Poor Molly may have needed some outside experts to help her diagnose why she is struggling.  Instead, Molly's mother signs her and her noxious sister up for beauty pageants.  Molly does not win them.Molly has some deep resentments to overcome.  But she loves her new job and throws everything she has to give into making herself a success.  You admire her unflagging work ethic, her problem-solving, her backbone in challenging situations with headstrong bad boys who tower over her petite frame.  She is good at what she does and day after day she gets her job done without complaining.I like this first book in the series a lot.  Molly makes some mistakes and some she repeats -- at the end of this book she is facing some errors in judgement that maybe she could have avoided if she had talked to someone or confronted them sooner.  I wish these new authors would find proofreaders before they self-publish.  It's a courtesy to the readers who buy your book.  Leave me a comment if you would like my help with book two.