Overnight Sensation by Hal Eisenberg

Summary:
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? (from GoodReads)

Review:
When I first read the synopsis for Overnight Sensation, I was wondering how the author was going to pull this off. A new hit song on the radio mistakenly gets attributed to a local teen band? It does sound a little far-fetched. But Overnight Sensation did a great job of drawing the reader in for this whirlwind ride of fame and glory.

What I loved is how much Jonah and his friends sounded like real teenagers. Sometimes the teenage "voice" is hard to write, but Hal Eisenberg did a great job with it. The characters (Jonah and his four friends) were all hilarious, from trying to talk to girls to butchering Spanish. Me gusta leer sobre Jonah y sus amigos y familia (Sorry I just got done writing a composition for my Spanish class!).

As for the music part, sometimes you have to suspend a little of your disbelief. But it's all in good fun! I loved how Jonah's dad decided to play along with the story that Jonah's band recorded a hit number. It was awesome seeing them work together and actually create a real band out of Jonah's friends.

Overall I thought that Overnight Sensation was a very cute and fun novel! It had me laughing and it was very easy to read. I wouldn't be opposed to a second book! There's definitely more to this story.

Rating: 7 out of 10.
FTC: received from author.

2012/Bells and Castanets/238 pages.