A Song for Julia (The Thompson Sisters) - Charles Sheehan-Miles

Everyone should have something to rebel against.

Crank Wilson left his South Boston home at sixteen to start a punk band and burn out his rage at the world. Six years later, he's still at odds with his father, a Boston cop, and doesn't ever speak to his mother. The only relationship that really matters is with his younger brother, but watching out for Sean can be a full-time job.

The one thing Crank wants in life is to be left the hell alone to write his music and drive his band to success.

Julia Thompson left a secret behind in Beijing that exploded into scandal in Washington, DC, threatening her father's career and dominating her family's life. Now, in her senior year at Harvard, she's haunted by a voice from her past and refuses to ever lose control of her emotions again, especially when it comes to a guy.

When Julia and Crank meet at an anti-war protest in Washington in the fall of 2002, the connection between them is so powerful it threatens to tear everything apart.

 The Thompson Sisters

A Song for Julia is part of a series of novels centering around the Thompson sisters. Though the books center on the same family, they are standalone novels and can be read in any order.  

First let me start by saying, I think this author tells a very well thought out, well written story.  It was easy for me to get swept up in it.  I loved all the characters but felt a special love for Sean and Jack.  They burrowed into my heart and between them and Julia and Crank, I read this story pretty quickly and pretty intently…until I got a little more than halfway through the book.  It was Sean and Jack that kept me reading at this point!

Sean is unlike any character I’ve read and between his own dialogue and his interactions with Crank and Julia, it felt very real to me.  I wanted to reach into the book and hug him, even if he would have hated it.   

The relationships between Crank and his family were so perfectly written, it was like I was a part of the room when they were all together. 

One thing I’ve been lacking in lately, is reading the synopsis of a book before I read it.  I’ve been more of a dive right in kinda girl.  I hear about a book, or a friend says I have to read a book, and I just buy it – no questions or synopsis first.  Here is where that kind of bit me in the butt though because at 60-something% into the book, I realized I knew this family.  And that’s when I also realized, I already knew how the book would end. 

UGH! So frustrating!  While the author notes above that you can read these in any order, it is always my personal preference to read them in chronological order (not by when it was released, but by when the story happens).   

Yes, sometimes it’s nice to read a prequel novella that is only a few chapters just to get a little more background, but to read an entire story and kind of already know the end result (maybe not the nuts and bolts of how, but the gist of it), to me took away from the story.   

I personally wish I had been able to read this first and then the next Thompson sister story that happens further into the future, after this book.  Of course, that will not stop me from reading more of this series because I love the story telling that goes along with it…but it’s like knowing how the magic trick happens, and then watching it anyway, it changes things.   

Up until that point in the book, I was thinking it was about a four star books, so I feel like that’s the fair rating to give it now.  I am just personally a little frustrated, and if you are the type of reader I am, and haven’t read either of the books yet, my suggestion would be to read this one first.