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A review by jenny_librarian
Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse
4.0
4 1/2 ⭐️
I loved this book, not because it was well written or the story was ground breaking. I loved it because I know exactly how Jody feels. I know what it is to be a teenager, feeling like you don't belong in the world, having barely any friends and finding your "soul mate" in a band member. Thinking he is the one person who would understand you, that he will find you one day and realize you're the love of his life. Like many other teenage girls (and possibly boys), I have went through this, through the extreme fangirl stage. This novel, even though it's far from perfect, conveyed the feelings of the fangirl perfectly. And for that, it would merit 5 stars.
Why I can't give it a perfect rating, though, is the characters and a bit of the writing. Let's be real, Jody may be 15, but she sounds like she's 12 half of the time. She acts like a petulant selfish child and her act of "I am a stupid fat cow" gets old really quickly. And although you would think Mac is better, his outburst at the very end (about the concert) is just laughable. Let's not mention Jackson who, at best, probably has a mood disorder. I get that he's a rock star and his public life is hard, but he's either a selfish asshole believing in his own holiness (whenever he complains about his life), or sulking and depressed (when he tells Jody about his therapists and the Cree incident). If he has a condition, the author could at least have made that clear instead of blaming it all on the drug (especially since he's clean after a week, yet still alternates between moods). As for the writing, well... last time I looked, "LOL-ing" wasn't a word in the dictionary. I get that you want to appeal to a young, digital-age audience, but for goodness sake keep your English at a literary level! It's not that hard to write "we were laughing out loud" instead of "we were LOL-ing"!!!
Despite those little hiccups, I deeply appreciated the story. I don't think it would make any extreme fangirl change her mind (God knows it took one major wake up call for me to snap out of it), but any "recovering" fangirl such as myself will probably recognize herself somewhere in there. And to those fangirls, I say: "we made it. And we're better, smarter people now."
I loved this book, not because it was well written or the story was ground breaking. I loved it because I know exactly how Jody feels. I know what it is to be a teenager, feeling like you don't belong in the world, having barely any friends and finding your "soul mate" in a band member. Thinking he is the one person who would understand you, that he will find you one day and realize you're the love of his life. Like many other teenage girls (and possibly boys), I have went through this, through the extreme fangirl stage. This novel, even though it's far from perfect, conveyed the feelings of the fangirl perfectly. And for that, it would merit 5 stars.
Why I can't give it a perfect rating, though, is the characters and a bit of the writing. Let's be real, Jody may be 15, but she sounds like she's 12 half of the time. She acts like a petulant selfish child and her act of "I am a stupid fat cow" gets old really quickly. And although you would think Mac is better, his outburst at the very end (about the concert) is just laughable. Let's not mention Jackson who, at best, probably has a mood disorder. I get that he's a rock star and his public life is hard, but he's either a selfish asshole believing in his own holiness (whenever he complains about his life), or sulking and depressed (when he tells Jody about his therapists and the Cree incident). If he has a condition, the author could at least have made that clear instead of blaming it all on the drug (especially since he's clean after a week, yet still alternates between moods). As for the writing, well... last time I looked, "LOL-ing" wasn't a word in the dictionary. I get that you want to appeal to a young, digital-age audience, but for goodness sake keep your English at a literary level! It's not that hard to write "we were laughing out loud" instead of "we were LOL-ing"!!!
Despite those little hiccups, I deeply appreciated the story. I don't think it would make any extreme fangirl change her mind (God knows it took one major wake up call for me to snap out of it), but any "recovering" fangirl such as myself will probably recognize herself somewhere in there. And to those fangirls, I say: "we made it. And we're better, smarter people now."