My Goodreads and Amazon review of Black Licorice by Elaina Battista-Parsons (Rating 5) – The Soundtrack of Friendship. Tune into Black Licorice by Elaina Battista-Parsons and listen to Freddi, whose flute-playing talents are prodigious. She also excels as the creator of the Black Licorice blog. Alas, Freddi’s skills at friendship are zilch. She’s made one friend at ARTS high school — Court, a viola prodigy — but her confidence is shaken when he disappears without reason or further contact. Freddi is at a loss to figure out what she did to drive him away. Reeling from that broken friendship, and sent to an ordinary high school as “punishment” for an angry outburst, Freddi stumbles onto the treacherous path of a potential new relationship. Her parents and peers warn her that this new friend, Lorna, is not suitable given her own (unspecified) “bad girl” behavior. Freddi pursues the friendship anyway, but every (mis)step threatens to sabotage her progress. The book is aimed at a YA audience, but even readers and writers of adult fiction, including myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), will admire Battista-Parsons’s ability to get inside the head of her adolescent protagonist and explore the complexities of friendship at any age with empathy, insight, and humor. Freddi keeps getting knocked down but readers root for her to get up, pick up her flute, and play on.
