HOW TO KILL A ROCK STAR
Standalone
Tiffanie DeBartolo
BLURB
Written in her wonderfully honest, edgy, passionate and often hilarious voice, Tiffanie DeBartolo tells the story of Eliza Caelum, a young music journalist, and Paul Hudson, a talented songwriter and lead singer of the band Bananafish. Eliza’s reverence for rock is equaled only by Paul’s, and the two fall wildly in love.
When Bananafish is signed by a big corporate label, and Paul is on his way to becoming a major rock star, Eliza must make a heartbreaking decision that leads to Paul’s sudden disappearance and a surprise knock-your-socks-off ending.
~Just about 3 stars~
”Note to self: Always remember how lucky you are to wake up next to someone who thinks you’re the shit.”
True words of wisdom spoken above. In a world where loneliness can be all encompassing it’s nice to have someone on your side rooting for you. When you find your ‘tribe’ it’s very freeing to allow you to be who you are meant to be. The problem is when someone else’s idea of success is not your own and they alter your course with their actions. They think they’re doing it for your own good but ultimately it’s a failure all around.
When the main cause of drama is miscommunication it frustrates me as a reader. This was one of those instances where some communication could have cleared up the initial mess that was created. I know at one point the culprit went to explain themselves but was disheartened when they saw the result of what their actions had done. A lot of characters were hurt by nothing being done to shed light on the situation.
I really enjoyed the writing style but from the beginning, I never connected with the story or the characters. The one character I really enjoyed was a side character who got caught in the crossfires of the clusterfuck. I felt really bad for them as I knew they were ultimately going to lose the heart of the one they had fallen for.
I know this book was written in 2005 and the majority of my friends read it about 4 to 5 years ago and maybe if I had read it back then I might have felt differently about the book BUT the world has changed a lot in that time. There were some words and phrases that just aren’t acceptable to use – gay, lesbo and retard. A few years ago in my son’s Freshman English class, a student had said, ”That’s so gay.” The teacher informed the student they couldn’t say that because it would be like everyone saying, ”That’s so [insert student’s name].” She reminded the students the use of those terms above have a negative connotation. When I read those terms in this book it took me a minute to remember this was written 12 years ago but I still found them to be distracting. The story felt like it could have taken place now and all that was missing to make it feel like current times were cell phones.
Overall, I’m glad I read it because I was able to see why this would be a classic Goodreads book. HOW TO KILL A ROCK STAR is on the majority of my friends’ favorite list as a must read book. It’s something that caused a lot of readers to flip pages to see what would happen next. It was also published when there wasn’t a lot of contemporary romance to pick from.
It’s a book where you have to experience it for yourself to see how it affects you.
STANDALONE
I get what u meants, Amy. I read this a few years ago and at the time I love it very much. But no way I’m gonna reread it now. I just shudder thinking about the kind of drama it contains. Urg!
Yea, my reading taste has really changed over the last 5 years. I’m sure there are books that I 5 starred that I wouldn’t do that now if I was to reread them. 🙂
But I’m glad I finally read -How to Kill a Rock Star. It’s been on my TBR list for the last 5 years. Way too long.