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Millie Price has dreamed of being a Broadway star for as long as she can remember. She has worked and worked and trained and focused. It’s getting closer: She’s 16 and a rising high school senior. She’s applied secretly to a special performing arts college that has a program for early admission for seniors, and she’s been accepted. But the big problem is that it’s in Los Angeles, and she lives in New York City. And her dad won’t give her permission to go. She’s devastated and angry.
Then when using her aunt’s computer, she happens to see an email with a link that leads to her dad’s LiveJournal from 2003. His broody and dweeby 20-year-old self is exposed, including his posts about his relationships and encounters with a few girls. Millie gets it in her mind that she’s going to finally find her mother, about whom she knows nothing except that she just left baby Millie with her dad, who has raised her with help from his sister. The LiveJournal provides clues, and she’s going to use them. And maybe her mom will give permission for her to go to the college.
So begins the summer of “Millie Mia,” where she finagles excuses to meet the three women who are candidates to be her mom. She gets to spend time with each, and she tries to figure out how to solve the mystery.
One is a dance teacher, so she takes classes from her (dance is decidedly her weakness). Another loves musicals and hosts a group for watching the movie versions — and she has a daughter not much younger than Millie, which really throws an interesting complication into the mix. The third works at a talent agency. When Millie shows up at the office, she unwittingly ends up in the running for a summer internship — against, of all people, Oliver, her rival in drama club at school. The two have driven each other crazy for three years. Now, rather than being free of him for the summer, she has to deal with him while deep in this crazy search for her mom.
Millie slowly gets to know Oliver and understand more about him. She befriends the potential half-sister. She sees lots of good things in the women she meets. And she slowly learns more about herself and the family she’s grown up with as she pursues the unknown.
My favorite Emma Lord book is still Tweet Cute, but this is a sweet story with some romance but more an emphasis on family. I find it interesting that Lord has written three young adult books now, and two include finding an unknown birth relative. Just curious about the back story on that.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 3 or 4 uses of strong language, around 20 instances of moderate profanity, about a dozen uses of mild language, and a few instances of the name of Deity in vain. There are a few instances of kissing but nothing more. There are allusions to her father sleeping with three different women as a college student, but no details.
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