Review: Overnight Sensation by Hal Eisenberg

Title: Overnight Sensation
Author: Hal Eisenberg
Published: July 28th 2012
Source: Copy given by author for honest review
Genre: Young Adult
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Caution: May contain spoilers

Fifteen year-old Jonah Levine is practically invisible at Applecrest High. His Facebook page is pathetic, his baseball skills are mediocre at best, and his IQ seems to drop 50 points when talking to girls. But everything changes when his rock band, Hitstreak, becomes the hottest teen sensation in the country. And now they’re about to perform in front of 15,000 screaming fans.

So why isn’t he jumping for joy?

Well, for starters, that hit on the radio wasn’t really recorded by his band. In fact, six months ago, he and his friends could barely play a note between them. And now they’re about to perform in front of 15,000 screaming fans. What begins as a mindless prank quickly spins out of control, involving his father’s secret past as a 70’s rocker, a high school bully who wants in on the action, and a powerful, ruthless, media mogul who will stop at nothing to claim the band as his own. Will Jonah prevail? Or will he and his band go down in flames and become the biggest farce in pop music history?

~synopsis from Goodreads

My Thoughts:

When Hal Eisenberg approached me about this book, he thought I would be interested since I mentioned in my ‘about me’ section about liking Billy Joel and Steely Dan. I really am a super fan of the classics from the seventies. I grew up on them. Some days, it’s all I want to hear, just a loop of great music from that era. Since this story ties in nicely to music of the seventies, I had to see what it was all about.

The premise of this story is cute--a bunch of teen boys pretending to have a band that plays a song that makes it big on the radio. At first it was just an innocent joke that wasn’t expected to go too far. When it did, Jonah and his friends have to scramble to figure out what to do to fix things.  Jonah didn’t want his parents to find out, but eventually it’s not an option because the problem becomes bigger than he can handle. Jonah is a very likeable character, smart and responsible. I also took a liking to the rest of his family too.

It starts off a little bit slow, with the development of the origin of the song by his dad’s band. Then it slowly opens up after the song gets sent to the radio. It’s when we get closer to the end that the story gets intriguing in a nice little twist. Yet, no matter what comes their way, Jonah manages, with the help of his friends and his family, to make the best of things.

Overnight Sensation is a very interesting story. It reads more like a mix between middle grade and young adult, and it is geared to appeal to teenage boys. I think because of that, I had moments where it wasn’t as appealing, but I still enjoyed it in the end. I would highly recommend this for teen boys, so if you’re a parent of a teenage boy and you want them to read, Hal Eisenberg’s novel is definitely a good one. I also recommend checking out the song from the book "Every Little Bit Hurts" on his site. Very good!

My Rating:

Pretty Good: Stay up until your bedtime