Books in Real Life, Episode 8: Open Road Summer

For this month's Books In Real Life we chose... Open Road Summer! Emery Lord's debut novel is one of our absolute favorites. It's about a girl named Reagan who goes on tour with country superstar Lilah Montgomery, better known as her best friend Dee. I can't tell you how long we've been waiting to feature this book! We knew we wanted to go to a concert but we had a very specific person in mind. We wanted to attend a Jana Kramer concert. For those of you who don't know, she's a country singer who was an actress on One Tree Hill, which is also where she made her musical debut. When we found out she was finally having a concert in NYC, we jumped right on it. 

Some of my favorite photos from the show!

Jana Kramer was amazing live! I had been listening to her music for the last month but her band seriously brought the songs to life. That energy paired with Jana's even better than the album vocals equaled one heck of a show! We were dancing and singing along the entire time.

Listening to her live made me pay attention to her lyrics more closely. They easily switch between heartfelt and sassy. Some of my favorite songs of hers are the ones that could be easily turned into a story (listen to "Why Ya Wanna" and "I Got the Boy"). Or the ones that I relate to ("Love"). And on top of that, she surprised us with random covers of old favorites like "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette and "Man, I Feel Like A Woman" by Shania Twain. In case you couldn't tell already, I really really enjoyed this show!

***

Survey time! At the end of every Books In Real Life post, we are going to answer a few questions:

Anything you wish you'd known beforehand? That she was going to have a not-so-great opening act. (Sorry!)

What was your favorite part? Once Jana Kramer started singing! Especially my favorite songs and the covers.

Would we do it again? Definitely! Whether it's just another concert or seeing Jana Kramer specifically, I would do this again for sure. 

Now for something a little different ... 

Alexa and I wanted to share our favorite Jana Kramer songs with you, so we each picked five and put them together in a playlist. Give it a listen and hopefully we turn you into a fan! 

Until next time!