Book Review: Played by the Rockstar
Katie 
The “Rockstar Romance” is one of my favorite sub genres, but this book just didn’t really do it for me. This was my 50th book to read for the year – but it took me nearly 2 weeks to make my way through it when nearly everything else I read I devoured in a couple of days. The book was very slow in ramping up for me and once things did seem to start happening, the book was done. I also have trouble when the characters don’t have common names, I’m not entirely sure why but it makes it harder for me to picture them. While our leading lady, Becca, had a name that was common, no one else really did. Our rock star is named Linx, and the rest of his band all have names ending in X as well.
I think if the first 25% of this book weren’t as slow for me, I would have enjoyed it more – as I finished the second half of the book much quicker than the first – but for me this one kind of fell flat.
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.
About the Book
A rock star walks into a bar…
Certified behavioral counselor (and former band groupie) Becca Forrester needs a break. Taking a leave of absence from her job, she moves into the apartment over her parents’ garage, and clinches a gig waitressing at a dive bar known for bringing in big name musicians.
Cedric “Linx” Lincoln is a certified rock star. Bassist for the hugely popular rock band, Dimefront, he’s in Denver while the band is on hiatus a-freaking-gain. He’s looking for something—anything—to keep him occupied until they can all get back to making music. When he saunters into his friend’s bar, he finds the perfect diversion.
Becca’s presence is a breath of fresh air. The sizzle she ignites in him is precisely what he needs. Bonus: no-stress, no-strings hookups are his specialty. But when things between them tip toward serious, his band implodes, and Becca’s leave of absence ends, they’re forced to decide what their “real” lives should look like. Maybe there’s room for an encore…
Love in Lockdown took me a few tries to really get into – it got off to a bit of a slow start and being set in lockdown had me wondering if it might be “too soon” to read such a book since we are STILL in a lockdown of sorts nearly a year later… For the most part, this book focuses on Sophia and Jack – he lives above her and they “meet” when they go outside to clap outside each evening to support the frontline workers. There are quite a few sub characters in the book too – many of which they know from the courtyard of the apartments as well as Jack’s brother and wife who have a baby during the pandemic and Sophia’s parents and sister – who has a pandemic Zoom wedding! Of course there’s your nosy neighbor and your lonely older man neighbor as well who work their way into some of the plot lines. Since Jack isn’t really able to leave the house, Sophia offers to do shopping for him and they end up trying to figure out the best way they can use what they’ve got and what they know to help our their neighbors as well. Since Jack is always home, he takes up chatting to some of the neighbors on the phone so they won’t feel so lonely. It’s all very sweet – but the title of the book makes you think someone is going to fall in love – and it took quite a bit for anything to really develop on that front. Things seemed to take off a bit more when I was about halfway through the book – I would have liked it to have picked up a bit sooner – as I said I had started and stopped it a couple of times because it never really “grabbed” me, but in the end it was very sweet.
F*ck the Bucket List For the Adventurer: Trekking into the Unknown is the 2nd in a trilogy. Part 1 is “For the Soul” and the upcoming Part 3 is “For the Health Conscious”. Of the three, I am the Adventurer, but hate the unknown. I had not previously read Part 1, so I was a bit unsure if I would be able to follow coming in at Expedition #10 instead of #1. However, it was written in such a way that you are able to pick up where one book left off and not feel confused or left out. (But I do intend to go back and read the first one eventually.)
“Too often we are led to make style choices, especially hair choices, out of fear. Fear that we won’t look attractive enough, professional enough, young or old enough, feminine enough. Feat that it will look like we ‘re putting in too much effort or not enough.” Starts The Breakup Hair Handbook after telling you to GO FOR IT if you want to change up your look after a breakup. The book pushes the fact that YOU belong to YOU. So do what you want and try not to worry about what anyone else thinks. Once that is out of the way, it’s all about choosing what cut you want and what color you want! In addition to great illustrations of hair styles there’s also all sorts of tips and tricks throughout the book – quizzes for if you should get back together with your ex, mixtapes, and ways to heal from your grief. I’ve never had a breakup (you kind of need to find someone willing to date you first, and that’s where I seem to be stuck) but a lot of it is relevant to just regular day to day life too. You can get to know yourself better even without a breakup as a catalyst.
Prince is a part of the Little People, Big Dreams series and is geared towards kids. This is a pretty quick read about Prince from a child to a superstar and contains a bunch of really great illustrations! The end of the book has a timeline about Prince’s life. While I generally knew about Prince’s life once he hit superstardom, I didn’t know about him growing up and writing his first song which I learned about from this book! I also really loved the illustrations, they are a lot of fun!
Trigger Warning – this book is probably not for you if you have an eating disorder or disordered habits.
Soul Girl drew me in with its tagline, “For souls that don’t know where they’re going but are in the rush to get somewhere…” I sometimes feel like I have no future, I have no realistic 5-year plan and I have no idea where I’m going but I could say that I might be in a rush to get there. The author, Kristina, early in the book pointed out “you are not alone, not now, not ever.” and while it may seem like I am the only one with these struggles, I very clearly am not because if I was – Kristina wouldn’t have gone through this as well and she would have had no reason to write this book to help out the rest of us!