lapetitepritt posted: " Hello, bookworms! Happy Sunday, I hope you are having a nice and relaxing weekend. Have you bought anything during the Black Friday sales? I did some online shopping, but all the items and gifts I purchased were not discounted, so I don't think it" La Petite Pritt
Happy Sunday, I hope you are having a nice and relaxing weekend. Have you bought anything during the Black Friday sales? I did some online shopping, but all the items and gifts I purchased were not discounted, so I don't think it really counts as BF shopping, lol. I did start buying Christmas presents, though, which makes me very happy. I am not usually a big Christmas fan, but this year I am going all festive and I can't wait for the holidays.
All this aside, as I had told you in my last review, today we are here to talk about another one of my most anticipated releases of 2022, Kiss & Tell by Adib Khorram. I still have to read Darius the Great (I know, shame on me), but I am on a quest to read as many music themed YA books as possible, and this — featuring a boyband — had to be on my list, especially since it's queer. But without any further ado, let's get started with this review.
About the book Title: Kiss & Tell Author: Adib Khorram Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers Publication date: 22 March 2022 Pages: 380
Plot, as stated on Goodreads A smart, sexy YA novel about a boy band star, his first breakup, his first rebound, and what it means to be queer in the public eye, from award-winning author Adib Khorram. Hunter never expected to be a boy band star, but, well, here he is. He and his band Kiss & Tell are on their first major tour of North America, playing arenas all over the United States and Canada (and getting covered by the gossipy press all over North America as well). Hunter is the only gay member of the band, and he just had a very painful breakup with his first boyfriend–leaked sexts, public heartbreak, and all–and now everyone expects him to play the perfect queer role model for teens. But Hunter isn't really sure what being the perfect queer kid even means. Does it mean dressing up in whatever The Label tells him to wear for photo shoots and pretending never to have sex? (Unfortunately, yes.) Does it mean finding community among the queer kids at the meet-and-greets after K&T's shows? (Fortunately, yes.) Does it include a new relationship with Kaivan, the star of the band opening for K&T on tour? (He hopes so.) But when The Label finds out about Hunter and Kaivan, it spells trouble—for their relationship, for the perfect gay boy Hunter plays for the cameras, and, most importantly, for Hunter himself.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Review The eternal dilemma of whether I like band/singer books or not continues, and this book did nothing to help me get a definitive answer. I shall continue to hunt the Internet down for more books featuring (queer) musicians and find my answer then. If you have any recommendations, please feel free to leave them in the comment. I've already read I Was Born For This and Daisy Jones and the Six (loved), If This Gets Out, The Boyband Murder Mystery, Given and Whisper Me a Love Song (just one volume, uncertain). I don't count musical theatre in this investigation, because I know I like that, but feel free to recommend books featuring musicals and whatnot, if you have some good ones, especially niche ones.
But back to our book: ovarall, it was a meh book. I didn't love it, but neither did I hate it, it was a very lukewarm reading experience for me, while I was hoping to fall in love with it.
Let's start from the good bits: I liked the sex positivity in this book, as I always say, it is important to show queer youth there's nothing wrong with enjoying sex if they do, and that heteronormativity should mind its own business and stay out of queer relationships.
I also believe the book was a solid portrait of the double edged sword that fame is; it wasn't the most original take on the topic, but it was well done. I'd say, it's a bit softer than both I Was Born For This and If This Gets Out in this regard, but it still manages to show the good and the bad of being a world famous singer of a boy band.
Another good thing of this book, linked to the previous point, is that it was sort of mixed medias, in the sense that there were chapters that were "excerpts" from magazines, blogs and websites. This was extremely interesting, because it showed how no matter what they do, there will always be someone saying famous people did it wrong. There were multiple articles with completely different POVs on the same event, that we got to learn from the MC's perspective. I found this very nice, and I would have loved to have even more of that.
What I didn't particularly like were the main characters, and the fact that the side characters didn't have any personality whatsoever. I know it's hard, especially when you have such a big cast with all the band members, but it would have been nice to get to know them all better. I honestly wouldn't be opposed to a companion novel from a different point of view, especially to talk about being a POC singer, or a famous POC person in general.
I also was not the biggest fan of the romance. First of all, it was too insta-lovey for this little ace heart. I need the pining, I need the unrequited love, I need the struggling to find the words. What I don't need is the two main characters from this book and their romance. I don't think they talked enough before starting liking each other, label and management aside. I also don't like what their third act break up was about and how it got resolved, but this is a very me thing. I think many people will read the book and tell me I'm wrong.
What I don't have a strong opinion, either good or bad, on is the writing style. I don't know why I was expecting this magnificent writing style, but I got a very easy and simple one. It was not bad, and it was fitting the vibes and the plot, just nothing spectacular.
Overall, as I said, it was a bit of a meh book for me, and it wouldn't be the first recommendation you'd get from me, if you asked me a band book (that would clearly be IWBFT), but it wouldn't even be the last, so proceed with caution, if you want to read it.
This is going to be all for today, I will talk to you soon — hopefully — with Juls' book tag for November. I don't know the theme yet, but I'd love a Raven Cycle/Dreamers Trilogy one, just saying (I hope Juls is reading this lol).
No comments:
Post a Comment