Music Match-Up is here again…round 8! This is a celebration of books and music. I take a book and pair it with a song that either reminds me of the book, has a similar feel to it, or maybe just has a random connection that only makes sense to me!

This week I wanted to celebrate Tom Petty. I know I just connected “Wildflowers” to The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett, but this seemed like the perfect time to celebrate another Tom Petty song. This one is a combination of the lyrics, the rhythm and just the overall feel of the song that makes me think of a certain YA book.

Lock and Key || “Learning to Fly”

I’ve read a lot of Sarah Dessen books. Maybe too many because I can’t connect many of them with a song. I connect them more with a visualization: a sunny day in the pool. This is because summers at the pool are when/where I read almost all of them. But there is one of her books that stands out. Not necessarily because I like it more than the others but because its character, Ruby, had a roughness to her that I didn’t feel in many of the other books. She’d been on her own basically for a while, but when her (not reliable) mom is gone, she’s forced to stay with her sister Cora. She moves into an upscale life. And I felt her carry a little of her darkness or edginess into every scene and every corner of this new life. It’s like the book was both summer light and heavy dark at the same time.

This is may be my second favorite Tom Petty song. I love the catchy beat. It’s almost like a pop song in that way. But the lyrics are much deeper. And I think they connect with Ruby’s darkness in the midst of the a fun summer read, which is why this song reminds me of Lock and Key. “Well, I started out down a dirty road, started out all alone.” The opening of this book is that dirty road. It seems as though life has and will break Ruby’s heart and beat her down. But she doesn’t let it. There’s a great quote in Lock and Key that says But I was sure of something, too: it’s a lot easier to be lost than found. It’s the reason we’re always searching and rarely discovered. Ruby has to learn a whole new life and way of being, she’s “learning to fly, but (she) ain’t got wings (and) coming down is the hardest thing.”