Shurrn's Reviews > Rock Chick

The first book in the Rock Chick series was highly amusing, but I don't think this book is for me...



I'm kind of terrified of Kristen Ashley Fans... The author has this huge loyal following (which I was not aware of this until I started reading this) and they love these books... Like REALLY LOVE them... To the point that when I realized that this book wasn't (for me personally) living up to the hype, I got worried about how I would write this review.

With that in mind...
Ms. Ashley, and her Adoring Fans, I want you to know the following:
1. I already plan to read some other series from the talented Ms. Ashley, and see if those work better for me.
2. I will always give my honest opinion in a book review, and I never expect the whole world to agree with me.
3. Maybe one day I'll try to read the rest of the series, and something will spark which was lacking this time.



THE AWESOME STUFF ABOUT THIS BOOK:
1. I am a total sucker for the "girl crush grows up to become full blown love" plot line *swoon*
2. Um... Lee Nightingale? Yes please!
3. Sassy heroine? Love that!
4. There were so many awesome secondary and tertiary characters.
5. The humor was great, even if it got down right silly at times.
6. Tex? Crazy cat man, coffee savant, looks like a serial killer? OMG yes.

THINGS WHICH WERE LESS THAN AWESOME:
1. You read the synopsis... there's a HUGE Mob plot in this book. Stolen diamonds, drugs, kidnappings, car chases, people got shot... So there should have been suspense, right? I didn't feel the suspense.
2. I was way not in love with India "Indy" Savage... She was a magnet for self-inflicted misfortune... It got old the second time she got kidnapped.
3. Indy was supposed to be thirty years old, but she had the emotional maturity of a nineteen year old, she was alarmingly sophomoric.
4. It was the mixture of immature humor and fumbled suspense which really wrecked the book for me... Consider a certain scene which began with someone being the target of a food fight (hee hee) and ended on the next page with that same person being the target of a car bomb (what?)... There were several other examples of this dichotomy, and it really diluted any threat of the Mob plot line being taken seriously.



HEAR ME OUT!
I really, really wanted to like this book!
I am a Rock Chick. I grew up listening to Mom's tapes of 70's rockers... I've tried to burst my own eardrums listening to Led Zeplin... I had my Grunge phase, my Metal phase, and yes... Even my Goth phase (lord help us all)... With the exception of Red Hot Chili Peppers (because I couldn't get tickets) I have been to every single show that Indy mentioned throughout this book... I am STILL one of the biggest TOOL fans you will ever meet in your life... I'd trade all my book boyfriends for Maynard James Keenan, and that just how it is.
So I say again... KA fans, don't hurt me...

And to all my friends and followers,
I'm not a hater. I will never hate on a book or an author for the sake of being negative. Nor will I ever lie about my feelings about a book to pander to a particular audience. And most importantly, I would never ever unfollow/unfriend or make nasty comments to a person simply because they don't like a book that I do. I'm classy like that, and I know that Kristen Ashley & her fans are classy like that too.

Some of My Favorite Moments:
(view spoiler)[
He smiled.
He smiled The Smile.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Man, Lee could smile.

...I was never, never, never in a million years going to tell Lee Nightingale that I’d been in love with him since I was five and he sat next to me during my Mom’s memorial service and held my hand. I was never going to tell him it was a Bon Jovi-style shot through the heart when he told me he wasn’t interested in me because I was his little sister’s best friend. And I was never, never, never, ever going to tell him that something had changed in him and he scared the pants off me.

What was he playing at?
He told me.
And he told me bluntly.
“I do this thing for Rosie, you sleep with me.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed and in stunned silence.
I did, of course, understand what he meant but he explained further.
“Not like last night, we’ll both be naked and sexual acts will be performed.”
My expression didn’t change except maybe my mouth opened wider.
“I’ll expect your participation.”
Holy shit.
“Your avid participation.”
Dear Lord in Heaven.

Lee was not just a Bad Boy, a Badass or a Badass Extraordinaire, he was a fucking crazy man.

I figured it would be bad form to smack Lee in front of his mother.
And definitely strangulation was out.

I’d never replace Rosie at the espresso machine. He had a God-given talent, no joke. He was the Picasso of Coffee.

My life had been simple a day ago. Work, coffee, rock ‘n’ roll. Now I was being shot at, dragged around by bad guys and propositioned by the love of my life who I had decided I didn’t want anymore.

“Stop it, you’re crazy! One second you tell me to pack my bags, the next second you’re on me like white on rice.”
The backs of my knees hit the bed and we both went down, him on top of me, his lips on mine. “Gorgeous, give me ten minutes and I’ll be in you.”

“...Can’t be fun to be practically famous for fucking anything that breathes and being able to do so by expending the immense effort of just sending a smile their way. Then, later, you find yourself in a position where you’re serious about a woman who’s known you all your life and knows this fact real well and have to convince her you’re serious.”

They all wanted the facts, all the facts.
If I but breathed a word of what it actually was like to kiss Lee, be held by Lee, or, dear Lord, what Lee looked like naked, I might cause a riot, even a war. I might have to arm myself and fight them all back lest Lee be torn limb-from-limb.
It was for the better health of the female population and peace in the land that I kept my mouth shut.

“I gave him your excuses for missing dinner on Wednesday.”
“What were those?”
“You’d be with me and I’d be fucking your brains out.”

“He’s from Texas and he’s a drag queen. He has quick reflexes,”

“That was hardly the point.
Okay, it was a point, just not the point.
It was my longstanding theory that men missed the point on purpose.”

“He’s straight, he’s taken and if he turns, I have first dibs.”

“Holy fuck, pandemonium at the gay bar!” he yelled.

“Jesus,” he buried his face in my neck, “there’s nothin’ better in the world than hearin’ you say my name when I’m inside you.” He slid in deep, filling me. “I’ve been waitin’ years to be right here.”
Holy crap.
His mouth was at my ear.
“I could be on assignment, in a desert as hot as an oven, in a jungle as close as fuck and sometimes I’d get through it dreamin’ of you sayin’ my name like that.”
Holy crap, crap, crap.

I had to pull out the big guns.“There’ll be naked gratitude in it for you.”
Lee hesitated, but just for a moment.

“We gotta talk. Do you think Betty and Veronica here can keep an eye on these two?”
“I get to be Veronica,” Ally said instantly.
I turned to her. “Why do you get to be Veronica?”
I didn’t want to be Betty, Betty was a doormat. Veronica had attitude.
“I’m so Veronica,” Ally said in answer.

“Lee, you’re gonna have to get over this jealous-possessiveness thing.”
“Indy, you’re gonna have to get used to the fact that I’m the jealous-possessive type.”

Mace? Who had a name like Mace? Where did these macho idiots come up with this shit?
“You got a guy named Mace?” I asked, I couldn’t help myself.
“His name’s Mason. Mason is a shit name. We call him Mace.”
That made sense.”

I discovered I loved stun guns, stun guns were righteous when they weren’t used on you.

“I don’t do hearts and flowers but I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
“You are so cocky.”
“Honey, I don’t give a fuck if you don’t believe it’s gonna be good between us. I know we’ll both enjoy me proving it to you.”

“Maybe we should have this conversation upstairs,” Lee suggested when he saw my attention turn to Eddie.
“Maybe we should have this conversation in an alternate universe where Alternate Indy gives a shit what Alternate Lee wants her to wear.”

“What’re you doing? Collecting the straight, super-macho Village People?”

“I’ll help you forget Nightingale,” Wilcox told me.
Okay, seriously, this guy was nuts. Even if he wasn’t a weird, creepy, icky, scary bad guy who killed people, there wasn’t a woman alive who would forget Liam Nightingale, especially if she’d seen him naked.

I wanted to run to him, throw my arms around him, do a lot of girlie, oh-my-god-I’m-glad-you’re-all-right and oh-my-god-I’m-glad-I’m-all-right stuff but his body language was not inviting that. This was badass Lee and hugs and cuddles were obviously not acceptable at this juncture. Therefore I kept my distance.
(hide spoiler)]