Born to Rock (review)

On the surface, eighteen-year-old Leo Caraway is straight A (en route to Harvard on full scholarship) and straitlaced (president of the Young Republican's club). Within his genes, however, lies a secret time bomb in the form of Marion X. McMurphy, a.k.a. King Maggot, lead singer of the legendary punk-rock band Purge, and Leo's biological father. After intervening in a homophobic assistant principal's attempt to accuse a gay student of cheating on a test, Leo takes the rap and loses his scholarship; finding no other options, he decides to become a roadie for Purge's summer revival tour in the hopes of getting to know his bio dad and hitting him up for tuition money. Along the way, Leo's tastes in music and girls change, yet his belief in fiscal and personal responsibility remains unshaken—that is, until a twist in his parentage is revealed through a DNA test. Despite the age of the characters, this is vintage middle-school Korman—band names and song titles (such as "The Supreme Court Makes Me Barf") are likely to be insufficiently edgy for the high-school set, and while the rock 'n' roll is visceral, sex and drugs appear mostly in hints, if at all. While Leo's character doesn't really change much—he's affable and well intentioned from start to finish—he learns to appreciate the fury of King Maggot's punk rock angst, if not to fully accept his father's politics and erratic behavior. Though the supposed novelty of a Republican punk rocker rings false in a contemporary punk-rock scene where all kinds of musical genres and politics are bedfellows, fans of Korman's Son of the Mob will enjoy the similarly troubled yet touching father/son relationship here, and they'll revel in a conclusion that features one of the loudest dei ex machinis (and administrative comeuppances) in YA lit history.