1990s nostalgians, this one's for you. 16-year-old Maggie Lynch has a ten-years-older uncle who turns her on to the coolest music of 1993. Just before she's expatriated to Ireland, Uncle Kevin takes Maggie to her first concert, a Smashing Pumpkins show in Chicago, where they live(d). Think Nirvana, think Kurt Cobain's death, and think teenagers in love.
It's a YA novel, so also think challenging relationships with parents and pushing boundaries. I'm not personally a 1990s nostalgian, so I didn't get as much out of this book as I expect most GenX and millennial readers will.
I did like some of the writing, like this nifty image, "A moon, white and round as a Communion wafer, hung in the sky and glowed through the hundreds of empty arches." Maggie is nominally Catholic, but living in a Catholic country and visiting a Catholic country. She's also communing with Nirvana fans and her illicit boyfriend, but in the wake of a tragedy that leaves her with seemingly endless grief (hundreds of empty arches).
Great book cover, with the map of Ireland as a punk patch, fastened with safety pins.