Rocking Out

Title: Rocking Out
Authors: Emily Veinglory
Cover Artist: Paul Richmond
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Amazon:
Genre: Contemporary M/M
Length: 152 pages
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

A guest review by Lasha

Summary Review: I was rooting for this book to be awesome, but unfortunately the characters were meh and the plot, at times, confusing.

THE BLURB

Bevin Stewart and Scott DeMaris may have been surreptitious lovers in high school, but now they have nothing in common. After graduation, Scott took their band, Black Lam, to the top of the charts. Crippled by an anxiety disorder, Bevin stayed home and opened a café with the royalties he received for penning lyrics.

When Scott barrels back into Bevin’s orderly life, looking for a real friend instead of showbiz phonies, they discover the spark is still flickering. But Bevin is plagued by panic attacks and agoraphobia—he can’t possibly handle the chaos of a relationship with a rock star. Even if he could, Scott is inconsiderate and in the closet. Bevin knows love means making compromises, but can he convince Scott—and himself—that it’s worth it?

THE REVIEW

This is the first book by Emily Veinglory that I have read. Besides my shifter fixation, I have a thing for rock stars, actors and anyone in the ‘Hollywood’ crowd, so I thought Rocking Out would be right up my alley. While the book is well-written, I just could not get into the plot and characterization as I had hoped and the whole vibe for the novel was kind of blah to me.

For example, while Scott is your typical self-absorbed rock star and I completely adored his characterizations — who doesn’t love a hot, self-centered rock god? I had more trouble with Bevin. At the beginning of the book, Scott walks into Bevin’s house unannounced and calmly proceeds to wiggle himself into Bevin’s bed and life. And while I understood the whole have a fling with your ex, Bevin’s actions made no sense given the characterization (he had huge anxiety and trust issues.) He immediately wants Scott to come out, so they can date openly despite the fact it might kill Scott’s career. Problem is solved when they are accidentally outed and then they begin some sort of long distance romance in which Scott treats Bevin badly never calling him. I’d afraid no matter how hot, Scott would have been thrown to the curb by me at that point. I wasn’t buying their romance.

Another thing was the secondary characters. Bevin had been an original member of the band, so when he sees his old band mates they treat him like Yoko Ono and no real explanation is given. I wanted to know WHY they disliked him so and didn’t want him with Scott. That aspect was not fully developed.

Plus there were some contradictory plot points that made me think of reasons why you never, ever get into cars with strangers that turned the novel from an angsty romance about reunited lovers into a crazy version of Stephen King’s Christine. That made absolutely no sense and completely threw me out of my mind-set.

I really, really wish I could have liked Rocking Out more, it has the potential, but ultimately failed in the execution. The author certainly has talent, but I could just not identify with the main character and so I cannot really recommended this novel.