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    Mary Jane: A Novel
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    Mary Jane: A Novel
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    Mary Jane: A Novel
    Ebook340 pages5 hours

    Mary Jane: A Novel

    By Jessica Anya Blau

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    "The best book of the summer." -- InStyle

    "I LOVED this novel....If you have ever sung along to a hit on the radio, in any decade, then you will devour Mary Jane at 45 rpm." —Nick Hornby

    Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones & The Six in this "delightful" (New York Times Book Review) novel about a fourteen-year-old girl’s coming of age in 1970s Baltimore, caught between her straight-laced family and the progressive family she nannies for—who happen to be secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife for the summer.

    In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.

    The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, Impeachment: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): the doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.

    Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 11, 2021
    ISBN9780063052314
    Author

    Jessica Anya Blau

    Jessica Anya Blau was born in Boston and raised in Southern California. Her novels have been featured on The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, CNN, and NPR, and in Cosmo, Vanity Fair, Bust, Time Out, Oprah Summer Reads and other national publications. Jessica’s short stories and essays have been published in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies. Jessica co-wrote the script for Love on the Run starring Frances Fisher and Steve Howey. She sometimes works as a ghost writer and has taught writing at Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College, and The Fashion Institute of Technology. Jessica lives in New York. 

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    Reviews for Mary Jane

    4/5

    242 ratings19 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be an articulate and emotional look into various subjects. It is incredibly comforting and has been described as the best book in years. Many readers loved the story and were rooting for the main character. The book is enjoyable, easy to read, and captivating, making it perfect for summer reading. Overall, readers highly recommend this book and are eager to read more from the author.

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! Really needed a feel-good book and this fit the bill.
    • 5/5
      such an articulate look into so many different subjects, so emotional and incredibly comforting. thank you. best book i’ve read in genuinely 5 years.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely loved this book. I've even played the songs from the seventies the author listened to while writing it. Just a great story and I was rooting for Mary Jane the whole way through. Will now read another one by the author. JB
    • 5/5
      full of joy and love
    • 3/5
      This started out as an enjoyable coming-of-age story but it started to get a little over the top as it went along, until it gradually got to the point where it was ridiculous.
    • 5/5
      Love, love, love!!
    • 5/5
      This book made me very happy. Fourteen-year-old Mary Jane comes from a conservative, wealthy, patriarchal family. Her mother has instructed her well in all aspects of housekeeping. She spends the summer nannying a well-loved but fairly neglected 5-year-old girl and in the process becomes indispensable to the unconventional family and their famous house guests. (Is Sheba Cher?) Everything about Mary Jane makes me happy from her no-nonsense approach to housekeeping to her openness to varying life philosophies. We all need more Mary Jane in our lives.
    • 5/5
      Charming, funny and heart warming story of a 14 year old girl caught between her straigtlaced family and the progressive one she nannies for.Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Refreshing and carefree, this coming of age story takes you back to the summer of 1975. Told from 14 year old Mary Jane's point of view, this novel reads like a teenager's diary as she finds that life is more complicated than country club lunches and choir practice.Over the course of one summer, the naive Mary Jane will begin to question everything she's ever known and her life will be forever altered. This is a great read if you want something light and nostalgic. The story's not too deep or complicated, and the characters are interesting. A good vacation or beach read. *Thank you William Morrow Marketing, Jessica Anya Blau, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
    • 4/5
      Sweet story about family and famous people set in 1970’s. Felt like a historical novel. Both the children were well written and interesting.
    • 4/5
      Set in the 1970's fourteen year old Mary Jane has a typical wholesome conservative family. When she is hired as a nanny over the summer, she is exposed to an entirely different lifestyle. A psychiatrist, Dr. Cone is hosting two celebrities, who are trying to maintain a low profile. Rock n' roll, free expression, sex and drugs open Mary Jane's eyes and makes her reexamine who she is and what she wants.This was a fun quick read. The characters were extremely dynamic and kept the story moving. The book really needed an epilogue, or at least some sense of closure. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Mary Jane, as told in first person, is a 14-year old girl, an only child, from an emotionally distant household with rigid rules. When she is asked to be a nanny for 4-year old Izzie, her parents agree because Izzie's dad is a doctor, which falls within their norm of an acceptable occupation. Unbeknown to her parents, the dad is also Jewish (not acceptable) and a psychiatrist (marginally acceptable) treating a drug-addicted rock star with a famous wife in their home for the summer. Her parents are oblivious to the members of her new household...until they aren't.Mary Jane soon becomes an integral part of their family life, even making meals and organizing a disorganized home. For the first time, Mary Jane knows unconditional acceptance and a sense of belonging where she is truly needed and appreciated. She sees and hears things that are beyond her scope of understanding, but she loves the people who make up her new normal. When she is forced to terminate her job, she remembers and retains all she learned from the people most unlike her parents. The ending requires a suspension of disbelief, but we'll believe it because we love Mary Jane.
    • 5/5
      I listened to an advanced listening copy from Libro.fm and I loved it! A wonderful coming of age story about 14 year old Mary Jane who over one summer begins to learn who she is.
    • 3/5
      Sheltered, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane of Baltimore is an unhip "little momma" type--she loves order and cooks and cleans like an adult. When she gets a summer job as a nanny to a much less conventional family--a psychiatrist, his wife, and their adorable daughter--she changes them, but she is changed by them as well. Moreover, the psychiatrist is secretly treating a rock star with a heroin problem and his movie-star wife, and through them (and an unorthodox "family therapy" session) Mary Jane learns the secrets of adult relationships and sexuality.Set in 1975, this novel is an easy read, but I didn't believe a word of it. In some ways, Mary Jane seemed far too old for her years, and, in other ways, she seemed too young. The evasion of any mention of child labor laws and any discussion of the ethics of the psychiatrist treating a patient in his (the psychiatrist's) own home were glaring omissions. The adult characters seemed to have been manufactured out of cardboard. Perhaps most importantly, I didn't buy how quickly and deeply the book's "found family" developed. All in all, not a favorite.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this book, knowing nothing about it, except that it was supposed to be funny. It was. It moved along nicely, focused on a family, and a superstar couple, and a babysitting teen as they face addiction head-on. Adult concepts.
    • 3/5
      In Baltimore in 1975, fourteen year old Mary Jane has been hired to be the Summer nanny to five year old neighbor Izzy Cone. Mary Jane and Izzy come from very different households, with the Cones living in a mess, Mrs Cone not bothering to cook and Izzy's coloring book is of human anatomy. Mary Jane has grown up in a strict religious household where her mother controls her every move, which is why Mary Jane knows she has to lie to her mother in order to keep her job, especially when Dr. Cone moves two famous people into the house to treat the rockstar husband for drug addiction.A coming of age story that focuses on the permissive and sometimes thoughtless parenting of the 70s. The reader has to wonder why the Cones would put a fourteen year old in charge of their daughter, and very quickly, the whole household, as level-headed Mary Jane becomes the housekeeper, cook and sounding board to the four adults in the house. I liked the story more in the beginning when I thought it would focus more on Mary Jane becoming independent of her parents, but it was much more about how the adults in the Cone household were too selfish to protect the children from their disastrous lives. At one point, Mary Jane is forced to take part in a group therapy session about infidelity. I also started focusing on how often these adults were touching her, kissing her forehead, asking about her feelings. Not a winner for me, but I didn't hate it.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable to read, easy and captivating enough to keep you going. Perfect summer reading.
    • 5/5
      Wow. It's been awhile since I've read a fun book so quickly. I felt like I was going down a fast and wild race course with all the suspense.

      The year was 1975 with a wide generation gap between the conservatives and liberals. Mary Jane's was an only child at 14 years old and her parents were on the top list of old-fashioned values. Everything was about image. They lived in a nice home. Her father worked as a lawyer while her mother took care of the home. The family went to church every Sunday. They were members of a club in Baltimore. The father read the newspaper while her mother cooked dinner.

      Mary Jane decided that summer camp wasn't her thing. She would rather spend time taking care of a five-year-old, Izzy, as her nanny. In just a few months, this experience changed her from being an innocent young girl to one that was exposed to a family that was the total opposite of hers. They talked freely about sex, the house was messy and unorganized, the mother didn't cook, and love was affectionally shown.

      There's more: Izzy's father, Dr. Cone, was a psychiatrist taking care of one patient in his home, a rock star, Jimmy, addicted to drugs for the summer. His wife was a famous actress, Sheba. She said, "We're all addicts of some sort...Part of being alive is to figure out the balance between what you want...,and don't have." Of course, Mary Jane's parents had no clue that their daughter was being exposed to this group of free thinkers.

      I loved this book. It made me laugh, cry and brought back memories of the past in so many ways. My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy to be released in May, 2021.
    • 4/5
      The story of a teenaged girl in the seventies whose home-life is buttoned-up and whose mother seems interested only in doing all her house-wifery exactly right. When Mary Jane gets a job babysitting for new neighbors for the summer, she gets introduced to a whole different way of living that includes rock and roll, lazy housekeeping, communication--and celebrity and addiction. I loved this easy but substantive read. I thought Blau captured beautifully the appeal and the danger of the world Mary Jane was being introduced to. Mary Jane's mother hasn't got it all wrong, and the neighbors haven't got it all right, and that dichotomy is never lost even as the reader (probably) finds the neighbors' lifestyle much more fun and, in some ways, more healthy. Recommended.