The Girl Who Became a Beatle

Gr 9 Up—Teenage musician and Beatlemaniac Regina Bloomsbury disappears into an alternative world when, frustrated with her high school bandmates, she makes a bedtime wish to be as popular as the Fab Four. When Regina wakes to discover that she and her band, the Caverns, are not only world-famous rock stars, but that they have also replaced the Beatles in rock-and-roll history, she is both grateful and dismayed. While she and the Caverns have achieved recognition, infighting among them inspired in part by Regina's stealing the spotlight leads to tension and the threat of group dissolution. And while she believes in the music of the Beatles enough to consider her new position as a conduit of their work something of an honor, she questions the price of this privilege. Taylor peppers his novel with a number of set pieces familiar to readers of the teen-celebrity novel: there are the obligatory scenes involving paparazzi and a brief romance with a teenage heartthrob who turns out to be much less appealing than the character he plays on television. These tropes don't overwhelm the story, which focuses more on Regina's musicianship, performances, and internal world than on the cosmetic aspects of fame. While the novel concludes predictably, its secondary focus on Regina's relationship with her father—particularly as it is threatened by the appearance of her estranged mother—and her discovery of other famous bands that were living through "replacements" provide some depth to the narrative.—Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, Boston