The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Reviews

“In Jonny Valentine, Teddy Wayne has created a vivid and achingly authentic portrait of an adolescent prodigy trying to make sense of a world from which he’s been kept mostly separate. Wry, witty, and genuinely moving, this is a novel that delves into the private longings of a public figure, exposing the sometimes dark and often ridiculous inner workings of a life in show business. The Love Song of Jonny Valentine is absorbing and beautifully written—and also a ton of fun to read.”

“This is ultimately a satire with a heart, capturing the sadness, longing, and confusion beneath the celebrity veneer as Johnny tries to make sense of the confusing adult world around him and be loved in a way that has nothing to do with star-struck fans. A top-of-the-charts tale.”

“Deft and delightful…touching (and unexpectedly suspenseful)…A sweeter, softer-edged satire of the pop-culture carnival.”

“Heartbreakingly convincing.”

“The Love Song of Jonny Valentine is a showstopper.”

“I’d wanted to go slowly and read The Love Song of Jonny Valentine over the course of a week or two, but once Jonny’s voice got into my head, I was hooked and kept picking it back up, and so I ended up on the last page, reading that final, amazing sentence, at like three in the morning. This novel is a serious accomplishment…America as we know it, with laughs on every page, but also a book that doesn’t take one cheap shot…And at the swirling core, you have an eleven-year-old boy trapped by his fame and trying to figure out how to move through the world, and who wants nothing more than to find his father. This is a book with a runaway narrative engine, tremendous ambitions, and an even bigger heart. I do not lie when I tell you: Teddy Wayne is as good a young writer as we have.”

“What is most searing about Teddy Wayne’s splendid new novel is not his trenchant social criticism, nor the itchy, unsettling way that he makes tragedy entertaining, but that in the bubble of celebrity which comprises little Jonny Valentine’s whole world, at times the only differences between the savvy, drug-taking, lonely adults and the savvy, drug-taking, lonely kid himself are his outsized talent, and their avarice plus wrinkles.”

“A moving, entertaining novel that is both poignant and pointed—a sweet, sad skewering of the celebrity industry…To create out of that entitled adolescent voice a being of true longing and depth, and then to make him such a devastating weapon of cultural criticism—these are feats of unlikely virtuosity, like covering Jimi Hendrix on a ukulele.”

“A buoyant, smart, searing portrait of our culture’s obsession with young pop stars. The book posits that his mom and the entertainment industry have enslaved Jonny—but that his fans and the media are complicit too. It’s also eerily prescient. After a night out drinking, Jonny drops in at a children’s hospital to rehab his image; in early January, after photos surfaced of Bieber allegedly smoking a joint, he visited a similar facility.”

“The Love Song of Jonny Valentine is a novel of ferocious wit and surprising poignancy. Teddy Wayne has written a pitch-perfect anthem for our surreal American Dream, a power ballad for the twenty-first-century unhappy family, an epic ode to the fleeting glory of fame…Adored by his fans, enslaved by the music industry, Jonny Valentine navigates the high-stakes game of celebrity while secretly longing for the love of his missing dad. And we, in turn, long for him to hold on to his soulful spirit, his baby chub, his cri de coeur, his ‘major vulnerabilities.’ A deeply entertaining novel with humor and heart to spare.”

“The Love Song of Jonny Valentine takes us deep into the dark arts and even darker heart of mass-market celebrity, twenty-first-century version. In the near-pubescent hitmaker of the title, Teddy Wayne delivers a wild ride through the upper echelons of the entertainment machine as it ingests human beings at one end and spews out dollars at the other. Jonny’s like all the rest of us, he wants to love and be loved, and as this brilliant novel shows, that’s a dangerous way to be when you’re inside the machine.”

“The real accomplishment is the unforgettable voice of Jonny. If this impressive novel, both entertaining and tragically insightful, were a song, it would have a Michael Jackson beat with Morrissey lyrics.”

“Provocative and bittersweet…Jonny is such an engaging, sympathetic character that his voice carries the novel.”

“Jonny’s voice is disarming and real…Wayne truly makes the most of his material and comes up with a book that is both entertaining and insightful…Includes one of the most complicated portrayals of the mother-son relationship since Room.”

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