Candidly Cline by Kathryn Ormsbee
A heart-warming coming of age story
Thirteen-year-old Cline Alden knows she’s meant to be a musician. After all, she’s named after country legend Patsy Cline. Her gran believes in her dream, but her mama? Not so much. Music doesn’t pay the bills and as a single parent, Cline’s mother keeps it practical. So, when Cline gets an opportunity to attend a singer-songwriter workshop at a large university in Lexington, Kentucky, she has to find her own way there without her mother knowing. At the workshop, she’s paired with this really cool girl named Sylvie and they collaborate on an original song. Cline has always felt for girls the way her friends at school feel for boys, but other than Brandi Carlile, she hasn’t had a real crush on anyone–until now.
To pay for the workshop without her mother knowing, Cline takes a job at the nursery at her best friend’s church and even likes hanging out with the youth group kids. But at the youth group lock-in, her best friend outs her during prayer time. So much for best friends. Plus, Cline doesn’t have all the funds yet to pay for the workshop, even though she haggled her way in to start taking it anyway. There’s only so long she can keep sneaking out to classes without her mother knowing before it all comes crashing down.
This book is exactly what I hoped it would be: a charming read where music is central and therefore can aid in my continual recovery from reading burnout. It’s sapphic, the main character is a guitar player (I started playing when I was around Cline’s age), and there’s even a nuanced depiction of church people. I may be a whole entire adult, but this book was written for me specifically. Ha!
Given that it’s a middle grade novel, I expected it to play out the way a 2000s preteen sitcom plays out, but you know what? It works so well in this book. I knew that there’d be some fictional-magic way that each of Cline’s problems would be solved–getting the money for the workshop, sneaking to class without her mother finding out, dealing with losing her best friend, etc.–but they aren’t overly convenient or unrealistic solutions. Furthermore, it was clear to me throughout that the author is a musician herself (confirmed by looking up her bio). The story never gets too technical with music theory or parts of a guitar, but what little bit is in there is accurate. For a middle grade audience, you don’t want to get too technical anyway. I also think the way the author depicts music through writing is an effective way to do it. Sure, she name drops all sorts of country and rock stars whenever Cline is talking about the music she listens to, but the focus isn’t just on stating song titles or quoting the lyrics. It’s about how Cline feels about those songs, how she feels when she’s playing guitar. The author doesn’t rely on lyrics or artists as shorthand for emotional character moments, which is a risk when quoting lyrics in fiction for the sake of plot or character development. I’m very interested in seeing how other authors handle the challenge of effectively depicting music in fiction, and I think Ormsbee does it well here.
This book also, unexpectedly, makes my very short list of LGBTQ+ books that don’t have a shallow treatment of religion. Make no mistake, Cline experiences the evangelical world’s “benevolent” homophobia, but at least one adult from that very church clearly disagrees with the way she’s treated and goes the extra mile to help Cline. Typically and understably, the queer fiction I often encounter either completely villainizes religion or doesn’t deal with it at all. Does Cline end up a churchgoer? Absolutely not. But she does encounter one person from that church who acts like Christ would to her when no one else would. When that adult (the head of the nursery) finds Cline running away from the lock-in, she listens to Cline, offers her a ride home, and lets Cline know that not only does she think the youth pastor is wrong for the homophobic things he said, but also that Cline can choose her battles. She can choose to walk away and say nothing to protect herself, or she can confront someone who believes those things. But either choice is valid and she should do whatever helps her keep her peace. It’s true that, even in Hillsong-Bethel-Elevation type megachurches in the south, there will be some who are more supportive of LGBTQ+ people than others and they will look out for kids who are discovering that about themselves when no one else in the church will.
The “romance,” such as it is, isn’t a big focus of the novel. It’s there and it’s cute, but doesn’t become a pressing issue for Cline until near the end of the book. This works fine for me because I never got the impression that this was a romance to begin with. The true driving force is Cline’s coming of age. She’s thirteen and dealing with all sorts of changes in her family, her friendships, and of course in her own self. It’s a lot more than just having a crush on a girl for the first time.
As much as I loved all the music references, I did wonder for a moment how realistic it is to have today’s thirteen-year-olds love artists like Joan Jett and Dolly Parton. The only artist mentioned whose era is more contemporary is Brandi Carlile. These kids are musicians, so it makes sense, and there’s a woman in one of my book clubs whose son adores Elvis Presley. It happens, yet at the same time, there’s an ongoing conversation in publishing about YA and even middle grade books being written for adults, not the actual kids they’re supposed to be targeting. Though I was happy to recognize most of the artists name dropped throughout the book, I’m not sure that I, a millennial adult, should’ve had that experience.
Regardless, I loved this book and recommend it if you’re looking for fiction with a heavy focus on music.