A review I read somewhere characterized “The Importance of Music to Girls” as a feminine “High Fidelity.” I think it’s much more emotionally unsettled, ambiguous and thorny than that, although it does share the same fundamental passion for music as an informing thread in one’s formative years. And yes, the mix tape as love letter and personal statement makes appearances here, too.

Uneven at first (perhaps attributable to some of the pieces being published or read elsewhere), the collection picks up momentum and cohesiveness and gains focus as Greenlaw gets to punk music and, ironically, struggles with what she wants to do with her future. “Unquiet,” which links Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and Shakespeare’s Hamlet with Joy Division’s enigmatic and tragic Ian Curtis, is particularly moving.