So far we have read three books, The Bookseller of Kabul, First They Killed My Father, and the "Country Music" book Sing Me Back Home, and of all the three First They Killed My Father was my favorite. What put this book above the other was the response that I had. No genocide is not a familiar subject to me that I can personally relate to, but the emotions Ung describes in her novel are easy to understand and vaguely parallel to hypothetical scenarios (i.e. losing a sibling or parent). On the contrary, in Sing Me Back Home, i can't make parallels to country music. However this doesn't create a barrier disabling my perception of Jennings' purpose throughout the novel. Music, no matter what genre, is expressed through it tone and most importantly lyrics. The lyrics of songs serve as the backbone and foundation of most music. And lyrics are decoded to tell stories and express emotion. This is what Jennings is basically doing, using his stories as lyrics to create the "ultimate" country song. Mentioning other country songs and country artists could also serve as helping to guide his story (country song).

sorry that this post is somewhat jumbled.