The book was good until about 3/4ths of the way through. Then it started to sag, loose focus, and even implode, much like what is happening to (and by) Justin Bieber, who is the loose role model of Jonny Valentine. ( )

Though I found the concept of the story and its characters interesting, the narrator and his style did not really appeal to me. ( )

I really enjoyed Wayne's Kapitoil but I found Jonny Valentine unreadable. at 100 plus pages in I'm still waiting for something to happen. at this point, I just really wanted Jonny and his mom to be hit by some terrible fate. it was easier to quit reading. ( )

I was very disappointed to find the eleven year old main character relying on sleeping pills to fall asleep after a show--pills given to him by his mother-manager nonetheless!! I was so put off by the sordid behind the scenes goings on that I stopped reading. ( )

How old were Justin Bieber and Judy Garland when their careers were launched? Poor Jonathan Valentino, an 11 year old with an angelic voice and a devilishly ambitious mother-manager, is on an arena tour across the US, with his bodyguard and tutor along to protect his physical and mental selves from scheming adults. What a pitiful, wretched life for a fifth grader, and yet Jonny Valentine, so very savvy and self-aware, is a sucker for his all-too-present mother and his all-too-absent father. Whenever he's given a chance to act his age, it backfires. Whenever he's involved with older people, he's exploited. And yet his essential goodness and honesty shine through in this gloomy road story. A remarkably nightmarish, only-could-happen-in-America, tale. ( )