My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Disclaimer: I may be biased seeing as rock stars are my favorite type of character, but this book has to be at the top of the list of best reads for me this year.
So, this is going to be the most personal review I’ve written. Reading the blurb and content warning about dark themes should have made me run away from this book given that I started it while in the middle of a depressive episode and while coping with an unrequited crush. Sounds like a recipe for disaster of the mental health variety, right? Well, I don’t consider myself a masochist for nothing.
Imagine as an adolescent, you have a massive crush on someone who is unattainable for various reasons and years later, you still can’t get them out of your head. Then, one day, your feelings are inexplicably reciprocated and everything you imagined, daydreamed, fantasized about becomes reality. But the reality is a thousand times more fantastic than what you ever conjured up in your mind.
Add to the thrill of attaining what you most desire the complication of mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism, and you have yourself a perfectly angsty love story.
There is so much I can say about this story that I loved. It’s hot and filthy. Funny and real. Raw and heavy. Simultaneously heart-wrenching and heartwarming.
The author throws in several music references–classical and rock’n’roll–that appealed to my music-loving heart. (I may have squealed at the Blur reference .) And the history and science lessons interspersed throughout were educational without being boring or taking away from the romance.
This is going to be one I reread many, many times. And if I end up sleeping with it under my pillow with a smile on my face and tear tracks on my cheeks, who will know? 😉