Born to Rock by Gordon Korman

In the fourth grade, Leo Caraway needed his birth certificate for a field trip to Canada. What Leo would learn was that Erik Caraway, the man he knew as his dad was not his biological father. A man by the name of Marion X. McMurphy was. Fast forwarded to Leo's senior year; 4.0 GPA, early acceptance to Harvard, a prestigious scholarship and a member of the young Republicans, Leo has his future mapped out and tries to keep McMurphy or the X factor, his wild impulses as he calls them, under control. That is until Melinda Rapaport, Leo's oldest friend, asks him to tutor Owen Stevenson, someone Leo does not really like. Melinda is the complete opposite of Leo; liberal, Goth and punk rock all the way.

After "tutoring" Owen, Leo has the bad luck of sitting next to him during the test. He notices that Owen is having difficulty with the one concepthe actually let Leo help him on. On impulse, Leo whispers a one word clue to Owen and gets in trouble for cheating. When the assistant principal gives Leo the opportunity to throw Owen under the bus to save himselk, Leo's inner McMurphy comes out. Now accused of cheating, Leo has a black mark on his permanent record. He is kicked out of the Young Republicans and his full scholarship is rescended. Leo has learned that Melinda keeps a blog and secretly reads it to see what his friend that he is slowly drifting away from is writing. On it she posts her English class essay entitled "Poets of Rage: A Sociological History of Punk and Its Offshoots" and in it Leo finds out exactly who his biological father is. Marion X. McMurphy, aka King Maggot, is the lead singer of Purge, the "angriest band in America". Leo discovers that he is Prince Maggot.

When Purge announces a reunion tour over the summer, Leo sees a way to get his tuiton to Harvard, he decides to ask the King. After causing an incident at the Purge press conference, Leo finally gets to meet his supposed father. Leo is surprised when Marion wants to get to know him better and offers him a job with the tour over the summer. Leo decides to do it and after a little father-son time to hit me up for a loan.

Leo soon realizes that life on the road is hard, especially when you are the boss' son. And Leo learns about true friendship, love and what a father really is.

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