Reviews

Are You Experienced? by Jordan Sonnenblick

alboyer6's review against another edition

4.0

I've always enjoyed a time travel story and this one was no exception, though it started a little slow it finished perfectly. another great tale with fantastic characters from Sonnenblick.

laura_m_j's review against another edition

5.0

Fun book to read! I am working with my freshman and sophomore English teachers to develop a list of book suggestions for summer reading for rising 9th and 10th grade students, and this is one I will recommend. Of course, I am nearly 60 and love the historical musical memories of Woodstock ...my husband was there.
Do kids still get into Hendrix, and Joplin for the plot to keep them engaged? Surely the father/son relationship will ring true.

atrocia's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

poachedeggs's review against another edition

4.0

I love Sonnenblick. I know next to nothing about the 60s, Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix, but he transported me to that era and made me care - not just about the boy who was zapped 45 years back to the past (from 2014) to meet his teenage father and uncle, but also about the awesome talent and wasted potential of the great singers who lived fast and died young.

Time travel is used here mainly as a device to place Rich Barber in the 60s; beyond some casual musing about the butterfly effect and

Spoiler

thoughts about sacrificing his own life (birth) to save his uncle from a heroin overdose

, there really isn't anything else philosophical or technical about time travel in this novel. So readers who go in expecting an SF novel, shouldn't.

This is, instead, quality YA for those who can't resist simple yet enduring messages being transmitted via the wry voice of the male adolescent - Sonnenblick's specialty.

not_a_violin's review against another edition

4.0

Man, I would love to have a magic guitar that could send me back to Woodstock.

Growing up now, I'm missing a lot of the music I would've liked to see. If I could go back, I would, but I can't. Instead, I have YouTube to look up all the old videos that may or may not have good quality...and books like this one.

Most music books have lots of emotional issues and overall heavy tones. Throughout this one, there was a very heavy tone that made it almost hard to read sometimes. Drama and heavy tones aren't my thing, but it was well done here. You always knew the main character's uncle was going to die eventually, and that was like a cloud hanging over you the entire time. That was just part of the story, though. In fact, that was most of the plot. It was well done and I enjoyed reading it.

What I liked was that it did well to capture what was going on then, and what was going on at Woodstock. It didn't leave out things like the war or the drugs or anything. Everything that was happening at Woodstock - no matter how strange it may have seemed - was there. Out of all the books I've read, this was my favorite that had to do with Woodstock. I'm happy I read it.

One thing I can say is that I wish it was like twenty or thirty pages longer, just so it could be wrapped up a little bit better. I think there could've been more there, and I would've liked to see it. Other than that, I really liked it. I just thought there should've been more, because I had a difficult time putting it down after it was done.

nbrickman's review against another edition

3.0

I absolutely adore the author, but for whatever reason the suspension of disbelief I needed to love this book was just too much for me. So I ended up merely liking it.

pikaellie's review against another edition

5.0

This was one of the first books in a long time that I actually enjoyed reading. I honestly had no idea what to think when the description could be summed up as "a boy plays a guitar that allows him to time travel" but the story was well-written and very good. I definitely would recommend it.

nanaboo's review against another edition

4.0

I liked it... Even though it reminded me a bit of the Magic Treehouse series, but for teens. Different than Sonnenblick's other books, but enjoyable.

jeannemurray3gmailcom's review against another edition

3.0

This book is basically YA. Quite a few adults will like it just because it is fun to reminesce about times past. Drugs are talked about realistically and not glorified. I would have liked a little more depth to the story, however.

tami_provencher's review against another edition

4.0

Are You Experienced? by Jordan Sonnenblick is a skillful melding of contemporary realistic and historical fiction. At its core this is a story about healing. We meet our main character as he is regaining consciousness in the hospital. Within the first few pages we know Rich is the teenaged son of older parents. In those first feeble, unsuccessful attempts to communicate with his parents from his hospital bed we learn that this particular difficulty in reaching them through his physical state mirrors the communication chasm that has existed between Rich and his parents throughout his life.

Sonnenblick surprised me by using a fantasy device in a story that is almost entirely realistic fiction when we discover Rich has time-traveled back to the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival where he meets his 15-year-old father and uncle Michael--whose death occurred before Rich was born, but the spectre of which has shadowed his life. The fantasy plot device is masterfully woven into the dual narratives of modern-day Rich and Rich's experiences with his father's 15-year-old self.


As Rich spends time with his teenaged father and uncle he gains surprising insights into the man he has always known only as his father. He learns of the severe abuse and neglect David and Michael endured throughout their childhood. Dedicated by Sonnenblick to victims of child abuse everywhere, Are You Experienced? paints in stark detail the wreckage child abuse leaves in the lives of its survivors. It portrays in courageous and heartbreaking detail the ways in which a child can survive the immediate physical and mental circumstances of abuse, yet unknowingly carry forward the damaged legacy into the rest of their lives. Remaining alive through abuse does not necessarily equal the opportunity to live. Rich's ability to reach out to his father in their present because of the insights he gains from the past is the first step in helping his father actually begin to live within the possibility of happiness.


I was touched by David's story and by Rich's. It is to Sonnenblick's credit that he creates such genuine, vulnerable characters and relationships and still manages to weave details of the historic Woodstock concert into the narrative--with appearances by Janis Joplin, John Sebastian and Jimi Hendrix, among others.


**This is not recommended for elementary students. I should note that Sonnenblick does portray the drugs and sex at Woodstock truthfully. It is extremely well done: enough details to create an accurate pictures but not so many as to glamorize or provide a how-to manual for younger readers.