Amplified was The Good Groupie‘s pick for the Spring 2014 Rock Novel Reading Club. The main character is Jasmine Kiss, who is kicked out of her house after graduating high school because she told her father that she doesn’t want to go to college and has deferred her freshman year. She is now “on the run” and tries to find a band to join to pursue her dreams of becoming a musician – even though she hasn’t played in front of anyone other than her best friend in his garage. Upon her arrival, her car breaks down and she meets a jerky guy who informs her that she broke down just outside a body shop. The money she had saved was supposed to be for rent in her own place, not to fix her car! She starts to look for housing and ends up finding an ad that a band is looking for a guitarist and it comes with a room – although it says that they are looking for a guy to join the band.
Jasmine figures that she doesn’t have anything to lose and tries out for the band. It comes down to her and another guy, Dave. I think you can figure out pretty quickly who they end up picking – I mean, I guess there would still be a story if they didn’t pick Jasmine… but to me it seemed kind of silly they were even doing the auditions when I knew how it was going to end up anyway! She tells the band that she has performed on stage before even though she is bluffing. She hopes that she can somehow make it work during their first show, but ends up bombing.
I don’t want to give up too much of the rest of the book because then there would be no point in you reading it. I really enjoyed the characters in this book, the band was full of all sorts of different personalities which helped cause for some drama within the book and the band.
I purchased this book in order to participate in The Good Groupie’s rock novel reading club. I am only posting this review as it is something that I think my readers may enjoy. I was not asked to write this review nor was I compensated for writing this review.
About the Book
When privileged 17-year-old Jasmine gets kicked out of her house, she takes what is left of her savings and flees to Santa Cruz to pursue her dream of becoming a musician. Jasmine finds the ideal room in an oceanfront house, but she needs to convince the three guys living there that she’s the perfect roommate and lead guitarist for their band, C-Side. Too bad she has major stage fright and the cute bassist doesn’t think a spoiled girl from over the hill can hack it. . .
In this fresh new novel by critically acclaimed author Tara Kelly, Jasmine finds out what happens when her life gets Amplified.