Are You Experienced? by Jordan Sonnenblick (review)

Rich thinks his parents are too strict, and their rules seem completely arbitrary. He knows his dad has never gotten over his brother's death from a drug overdose, but that was forty-five years ago, and Rich wants his dad to move on and live in the present. When an arrest following a protest rally to legalize medical marijuana gets Rich in serious trouble, he decides it can't get any worse and he invades his dad's private sanctuary, where he finds, of all things, a guitar signed by Jimi Hendrix—the guitar, in fact, that Hendrix played at Woodstock. Suddenly, he's transported back in time to the 1969 festival, where he meets his dad and his uncle and learns the secrets that have held his father in an emotional prison for years. As a cultural history, Rich's experience captures the mood and magic of the famous weekend from a distinctly contemporary perspective. Readers will marvel along with Rich at the innocence with which the Woodstock crowd embraced dangerous drugs without the benefit of foresight; as he listens with wonder to the performances and meets many of his music idols, he reflects on the devastating toll substance abuse will take on many of these gifted artists. However, this is a family story as well, and Rich must come to terms with the fact that he can't change history, and that his best chance is to understand it and then go home and help his father understand it as well. The backstory Rich uncovers is one of abuse and neglect that leads to tragic circumstances, but the message is an inverted story of resilience, where a teen helps his father overcome the pain of abuse, which proves that the magic of Woodstock might not be a thing of the past after all. A coolly creepy historical note is included.