Title: On the Right Track (Vocal Growth #1)
Author: Sam Kadence and Michael Stellman (Narrator)
Publisher: Harmony Ink Press
Release Date: October 29th 2014
Genre(s): M/M Contemporary Young Adult Romance
Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
Reviewed by: Belen
Heat Level: 1.5 flames out of 5
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Blurb:
A Harmony Ink Press Title
Vocal Growth: Book One
Ryunoski “Ru” Nakimura knows all about the trappings of fame. Expelled from a boy band for coming out as gay, he still wants to continue his career in music. Too bad his ex finds nothing better to do than exploit their relationship in the press, so Ru leaves California behind to lie low in Minnesota for a while.
Adam Corbin attends a Minnesota high school and wants to coast through as a typical student. He’s friends with an openly gay student, Bas Axelrod, but while Adam plays football, he also stays away from much socializing. Blending in and not outing himself has been easy because he’s never really been seriously interested in any of the guys he’s encountered.
When Adam meets Ru in a library, Adam begins to think he’s found that special young man who might make it worthwhile to just be himself. And for Ru, Adam looks like someone he might trade his fame for, if they could be together. Ru and Adam will both come to realize that courage and love must go hand in hand if they are to have a future.
Michael Stellman delivers another terrific performance. I loved the narration, and was kept engaged and interested throughout the story and a maybe even a little sad to see it end.
I like Young Adult stories…the hormones and the craziness of that time in our lives when everything was SO MUCH! I can’t say I loved the story because, frankly, the story was just a smidgeon too over the top. This is like Romeo and Juliet without the crazy feud and suicide. Or the marriage, or the…
Okay, so it’s not like Romeo and Juliet except they’re both super young and fall instantly in love upon seeing each other and become way too dependent on each other.
Anyway…it’s a sweet story overall, though there were some parts that bothered me…
- Spoiler
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Ru and Adam’s relationship concerned me a bit. I felt like the whole instant love and weird co-dependent dynamic was well beyond normal and made it almost a kind of parody of “young love”. If I was Adam’s mother and my kid was having the kinds of highs and lows and freak-outs he was having, I’d be worried.
Adam being sixteen and never having masturbated or wanting to masturbate also struck me as an off note. I thought at first he might be asexual or demisexual, but he’s very interested in Ru and loves to kiss and cuddle and rub…so maybe still demisexual? I don’t know, but the point irked me. NOTE: All sexual situations (aside from kissing and cuddling and one “mess in his pants” ejaculation) happens off page, which is sort of expected with most YA, but I would have liked more. Also – referencing Adam as “the younger man” was annoying. He’s sixteen to Ru’s seventeen, quit with the “younger” stuff already!
Bas’s whole story bothered the ever-loving-fuck out of me. The school supposedly has an anti-bullying policy (which, granted the Principal said had gotten lax) but Adam states Bas had been beat up numerous times, all on school grounds, and the last time he was found with his pants around his ankles in the bathroom bleeding to death. YET THE STUDENTS RESPONSIBLE WERE NOT PUNISHED IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM? They were sitting there the following Monday when he came back to school. What the fuck?! Why weren’t they arrested? And all Bas does is whisper a couple of cryptic remarks to Adam instead of coming out and telling him Nate is psychotic fuck-head who doesn’t like “no” as an answer?
- Spoiler
- the article, how Ru and Adam withstood the media and fan frenzy after Adam’s introduction to the world as Ru’s new uber-love, what happened with the restraining orders for Chris and AJ, what happened with Tommy quitting VG, what happened with Nate and the other two guys who were expelled? How was Adam received back at school after the crackdown on bullying and after his outing as Ru’s boyfriend?
On the whole the excellent narration keeps it from becoming too saccharine sweet and kept me from thinking too long on the spoiler points, and overall it has a good, if heavy-handed, anti-bullying message.
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