Amy Gaer is a busy working wife and mother with young twin boys and a precocious teenage daughter. After returning home from a hectic day at work, Amy greets her children and carves out a few minutes to listen to her daughter sing. A delicate, silky melody fills the air, and Amy’s mind drifts back more than twenty years to a time when everything changed for her… the rise. “Hair bands” are fading. Amy graduates from college and despite a talent for music, she’s determined to chase the corporate ladder. Returning to rural Iowa for the summer to live at home with her parents, all her plans shift when Amy meets a local farmer named Nick. A romance blossoms and suddenly the previously banal landscape becomes beautiful. But settling into a life with Nick is far more complicated than she expected, and she is faced with decisions that will alter her life forever.
For fans of Emily Giffin and Sophie Kinsella, Goodbye Def Leppard (I’ll Miss Those Jeans) is a lighthearted yet poignant tale about life, fate, and the difficult choices we make.
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Amy, our main character here, bumbles through motherhood and an ever-changing society while holding onto the nostalgia of her youth and talent. Moving forward doesn’t have to feel like leaving everything you love and care for behind, and author Stef Kramer navigates this maze quite well through Amy’s recant of her life..
Everything ties together for Amy when she meets someone in the most unexpected of places (per normal for these things). This story is a great journey through the confusion of life, the unexpected bliss of love, and how things tend to shake out just fine in the end (even if it isn’t ideal or what we initially wanted).
Stef Kramer’s writing is solid, and though there are many great writers out there, she tells a great piece of fiction that feels biographical.
This book is for anyone that questions where they are and how they got here, and for anyone who is looking forward at their path and wondering if things are going to come together. Life is funny in that it tends to work out, and we end up right where we were supposed to be.
Present-day mom of three Amy Gaer recounts her experiences back in the early nineties when she was a college student coming home to her parents in rural Iowa where her musician and law school dreams eventually change when she meets dashing farmer Nick. Amy recalls the times she got to meet Nick’s family to how she makes peace with a high school boyfriend of hers to her adventures as a bank teller for a small-town bank in Loam County. Also, Amy’s father calls her Amos probably due to the fact that she is his only child and he wants a son as any typical father would. This does not mean that Mr. Gaer resents her, no, he absolutely loves her. Amy also tells of high school contemporaries of hers who she meets like Shandy Wilson who she describes as her one-time best friend turned nemesis, haha.
What I truly liked about this book was that it definitely mirrors my own journey in my adult life. I mean, I could see myself in Amy because we both were English majors in college. I could relate to her love for books and I enjoyed how the author Kramer would have Amy mentioning literary classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, House of Mirth, and East of Eden. I also absolutely loved her way of incorporating rock music into this story where Amy talks about classic rock bands like The Cure, Journey, this book’s namesake Def Leppard, and Motley Crue. I also admire Kramer’s usage of 70’s and 80s song titles like Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In the Wall”, Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”, Madonna’s “Material Girl”, Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know”, and Blondie’s “Call Me” to name a few. All of those made me really enjoy this book resulting in me reading it in just two days in contrast to my usual reading duration of a week for a book of this book’s length. The most coincidental aspect of this book is how some of Amy’s attributes are similar to mine. In addition to us both being English majors and lovers of music, we also both have something to do with financial institutions. I used to work as a receptionist for a bank in my hometown. It’s such a coincidence it makes me smile.
So, who should I recommend this beauty to? I would definitely this book should be read by all college graduates. People who are about to graduate from university and are about to return to their hometowns should give this book a read because it could help them decide on their career paths and goals. I also think that it would be enjoyed by all English majors as well as music majors. I saw myself in Amy and it has made me think about my own future and where I want to be in ten years from now. It’s very real life-like because it’s true that some English majors don’t all end up as writers or teachers. Sometimes we take on careers that are more lucrative because I tell you if you are not savvy about your English degree then you will definitely not make a lot of money with it. So there you have it! I really commend author Stef Kramer for writing this book because it is relatable and definitely describes the reality of having English as your college major. I’m not talking about the negative side of it but the positive aspect of it where you can be anything you want in life if you use your creativity skills that you learned from your college education. Enjoy your day now!