A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban

Title: A Crooked Kind of Perfect
Author: Linda Urban
Publication: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2007)
ISBN 978-0-15-206608-6
Format PaperBack (211 pages) $6.99 US + ? CAN

Rating: 4

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Zoe Elias has big musical dreams. As soon as she gets a glossy baby grand piano, she'll be on her way to Carnegie Hall. Trouble is, what Zoe gets is a wood-grained, vinyl-seated, wheeze-bag organ.

Yet when she enters the annual Perform-O-Rama organ competition, Zoe finds that life is full of surprises--and that perfection may be even better when it's just a little off center.

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When I picked out this book I did not think beyond the fact that it sounded interesting, I liked the socks on the cover, and I wanted to read about someone learning how to play the organ. My decision was not premeditated. I had just recently finished reading something about The Phantom of the Opera and so just the word organ caught my interest. I had thought that it would be interesting and if it was not, oh well, I spent less than four dollars on it.

What I was not expecting was a book that made me laugh and want to be able to know more about her family. Not only her dad that spends all day at home getting diplomas that he would never use but the mother who actually gave a fourth grade class money only to take it back.

A couple of reviews that I have read said that because she started to learn the organ everything in her life begins to go wrong. I didn't see the book that way. I saw it as when she started to learn the organ she began to shake free of her bubble of how she thought everything was. She stops living in a fantasy world where everything is parties and sunshine and starts to see that not everything is how she thought they should be. Every time before her dream bubble is popped she shares with us how she thought they would be and even as you read it you know it is wishful thinking. In the end I like the reality better than the dream.

The book is cute and funny. Because of the fact that Zoe is ten there is not really any romance. There is a short crush or two but that is all.

My other favorite character had to have been Wheeler Diggs. However, while I did learn more about him than say the mother I did not learn what I had been biting my nails for since they alluded to it from the beginning: his home life. They make little mentions of how his home life might not be the best and how he is surprisingly skinny but the author never confirms or denies if anything is going on there.

Finally I wish I could try some of the delicious cookies that are mentioned in the book or that I was able to learn how to play an instrument as fast as Zoe seemed to be able to.