Wild Heart
Abstract
This thesis is a young adult novel about a teen girl with a passion for music. After a mysterious house fire lands their mom in the hospital, Greta and her brother Robin move in with their estranged grandmother, Marisol. Though Greta tries to shun Marisol like her mom always has, she discovers they share a love of music. Tensions rise when her mom returns to Marisol’s house: not only have Greta and Marisol grown closer, but Greta has become the lead singer of a punk band. While facing pushback for being a frontwoman with a back brace, Greta grapples with the loss of her house and the dark shift in her mother, who is becoming someone Greta doesn’t recognize. Told in verse and prose chapters, Wild Heart is a story about loss, secrets, and reassembling a home after everything’s been wrecked. And at its heart, it’s about a girl who discovers that music is her calling, embedded in her down to her bones.
