Almost Famous meets Judy Blume in this fun­ny, wise, and ten­der nov­el about a four­teen-year-old girl’s com­ing of age in 1970s Baltimore.

In 1970s Bal­ti­more, teenaged 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 Jew­ish doctor.
The house may look respectable on the out­side, but there’s clut­ter on every sur­face, Impeach­ment: Now More Than Ever bumper stick­ers on the doors, cere­al, and take­out for din­ner. And 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.

Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just real­ized is pos­si­ble, Mary Jane will arrive in Sep­tem­ber with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of per­son she’s going to be.