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A review by liralen
VIP: Battle of the Bands by Jen Calonita, Kristen Gudsnuk
3.0
I'd had [b:VIP: I'm With the Band|25318821|VIP I'm With the Band|Jen Calonita|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1441302903s/25318821.jpg|45051615] on my to-read list for a while but hadn't realised there was a second book, so it was just good luck that I'm visiting my parents and my mum happened to be going to one of the big library branches, and this was very conveniently there.
The series remains both cute and too young for me. In Battle of the Bands, Mac's beloved boy band is threatened by the rise of another boy band—one willing to stoop to stealing unreleased songs and breaking into the tour bus. To be fair, the stakes for these kids are legitimately pretty high (if the band doesn't take off, there's no guarantee that they'll ever have the same chances in the music industry again), but, uh, I am maybe too old to be especially amused by a bunch of kids getting in very public spats with the competition? You'd think it would be enough to sour public opinion.
At its base, though, this is simple pre-teen wish fulfillment: girl gets to become besties with [insert favourite band here]; whichever ones do not provide romantic potential are like the cool (and nice, and playful) older brothers she never knew she wanted. As a bonus, Mac seems like one of those kids who is normally somewhere in the middle, neither the picked-upon dork nor the super-pretty Queen of the Populars; it gives her more room to be an interesting character without falling into a very standard type. I imagine the series going over like gangbusters in middle schools.
The series remains both cute and too young for me. In Battle of the Bands, Mac's beloved boy band is threatened by the rise of another boy band—one willing to stoop to stealing unreleased songs and breaking into the tour bus. To be fair, the stakes for these kids are legitimately pretty high (if the band doesn't take off, there's no guarantee that they'll ever have the same chances in the music industry again), but, uh, I am maybe too old to be especially amused by a bunch of kids getting in very public spats with the competition? You'd think it would be enough to sour public opinion.
At its base, though, this is simple pre-teen wish fulfillment: girl gets to become besties with [insert favourite band here]; whichever ones do not provide romantic potential are like the cool (and nice, and playful) older brothers she never knew she wanted. As a bonus, Mac seems like one of those kids who is normally somewhere in the middle, neither the picked-upon dork nor the super-pretty Queen of the Populars; it gives her more room to be an interesting character without falling into a very standard type. I imagine the series going over like gangbusters in middle schools.