THE MYTHIC KODA ROSE

Koda Rose is about to turn 18 and has just moved to Manhattan, where she is confronted with scrutiny for being the only child of her famous rock-star father, who died when she was a newborn.

Mack Grady was the lead singer for Quixote, a rock band that still has ardent fans years after his suicide. Koda grew used to some of the attention paid to her but mostly lived a life of relative normality in Los Angeles with her mother. All that changes when they move to the Upper East Side and students at her new school see her only as Mack’s daughter and are uninterested in getting to know the real Koda. In addition to wrestling with her identity, curiosity about her father, and romantic feelings for a girl named Lindsay, her best friend back home, Koda becomes obsessed with finding Sadie, Quixote’s guitarist and Mack’s ex-girlfriend. Once she connects with her, Koda’s worship of Sadie and their unhealthy interactions threaten all her other relationships. While the premise is intriguing, weak character development limits reader engagement: Koda’s naïveté rings false for a wealthy girl from Los Angeles, and her workaholic mother with disordered eating feels two-dimensional. Most major characters are White; Lindsay is Dominican, and a former band member who plays a supporting role in the story is Black.

A potentially interesting exploration of identity in relation to parental fame let down by light characterization.