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A review by _mia_mia_
Catch My Breath by M.J. O'Shea
2.0
I am a big lover of all things cheesy, especially in love stories. And this novel certainly fed my love of cheesy romances. I also really like LGBT stories (though I am aware of the difficulties attached to (straight?) women writing about two gay characters, the fetishization argument etc.), especially LGBT romances. And again, this book totally fed that love.
But overall I was not too big a fan of the story, the characters and the narration. Here are some things that bothered me:
The novel is the story of two musicians who fall in love and have to hide their relationship for the sake of their careers (something which, unfortunately, seems to still be happening to artists in real life in this day and age - I recommend Lance Bass' biography "Out of Sync", which touches on this topic). But music plays such a small role in the overall story. I think this is mainly because the focus of the story is the romance and the narration skips over a lot of the music-related things in the protagonists' lives. But if you want to make me believe that I am reading the love story between two musicians, I am gonna need more than that. I wanted to read about how they see the world through a musician's perspective, what they liked and hated about certain songs, which music they loved to listen to and so on. It seemed so strange to read so little about the actual music that was supposed to be such a big thing for them.
Also, and this relates to my first point, Elliot hadn't really sung anywhere but his shower before he was discovered at a talent show (that his best friend dragged him to). For the crazy success that his band had shortly after and the way his voice and sining abilities were described, that seemed kind of hard to believe. It just kind of made it harder to believe.
Dannie's (ex) girlfriend Katie only appeared when she was needed, when she was a convenient character for him to talk to about his problems and his love for Elliot. We never really learned much about her personality, her life, her dreams, her goals etc. outside of how she related to Dannie. That made her a really weak character and bugged me throughout the entire book. I think she deserved better.
The same goes for Elliott's best friend Sarah. Again, we learn next to nothing about her. And what bothered me most was that she gives him advice and listens to him and supports him through everything and he NEVER asks her about her day, her life etc. What a shitty thing to do! It made their friendship seem so one-sided and strange and made me dislike Elliot as a character.
Dannie was really isolated, his parents are distant and always absent, we learn nothing about them aside from this fact and the fact that they are really rich. Aside from his ex-girlfriend there seemed to be absolutely nobody in his life before he became part of the band. That made him kind of a flat character.
The whole formation of the band seemed kind of unrealistic. I don't know much about the music industry, so maybe that is just me being ignorant, but I felt like everything fell in place just a little too quickly and conveniently.
I think insta-love stories can happen and are fine, I am usually not bothered by it, but it seemed awfully fast and hard to believe here.
The cheesiness got a little too much at times, even for me. Oh dear, the way these boys declared their feelings for each other again and again, was a little cringe-y at times. But maybe I am just not really the demographic for this kind of love story anymore.
Some things were repeated again and again, as if to make the reader believe it, but that didn't help.
Elliot's character seemed to change from scene to scene at times, he just felt a little inconsistent to me.
Do these boys in the band EVER argue? They were five strangers who were thrown together under intense stress and pressure and they spent so much time together in close quarters. Surely there would have been some more tensions?
The big manager-music company boss was so clichéd, he was so very bad without any redeeming characteristics at all that he read more like a stock character than an actual person.
The fact that Danny and Elliot didn't just walk away seemed a little strange to me, but then again they were young and it was a difficult situation. I guess after reading Lance Bass' biography I now appreciate that their situation was, in fact, a really tough one to get out of.
The ending seemed a little too convenient to me. I mean, I understand that this is a HEA romance novel, but still... after the entire book tried to convince me that Elliot and Danny didn't have any other way than to go along with the label's and the PR firms plans, it was all a little too easily resolved in the end. That kind of undermined the entire central conflict of the novel for me.
So all in all I liked the love story, even though it was extremely cheesy. I liked the way the relationship between Danny and Elliot progressed and how they tried to deal with everything as best they could. There were some really believable fights between them and some believable bumps on their road. I liked that part of their relationship dynamic a lot, it seemed quite realistic and well-executed to me. But there were just too many things that
Side note: Omg, is the music industry really this terrible?! Are PR firms really this involved and crazy good at covering stuff up and constructing a public image? If it is, that is really really scary.
But overall I was not too big a fan of the story, the characters and the narration. Here are some things that bothered me:
The novel is the story of two musicians who fall in love and have to hide their relationship for the sake of their careers (something which, unfortunately, seems to still be happening to artists in real life in this day and age - I recommend Lance Bass' biography "Out of Sync", which touches on this topic). But music plays such a small role in the overall story. I think this is mainly because the focus of the story is the romance and the narration skips over a lot of the music-related things in the protagonists' lives. But if you want to make me believe that I am reading the love story between two musicians, I am gonna need more than that. I wanted to read about how they see the world through a musician's perspective, what they liked and hated about certain songs, which music they loved to listen to and so on. It seemed so strange to read so little about the actual music that was supposed to be such a big thing for them.
Also, and this relates to my first point, Elliot hadn't really sung anywhere but his shower before he was discovered at a talent show (that his best friend dragged him to). For the crazy success that his band had shortly after and the way his voice and sining abilities were described, that seemed kind of hard to believe. It just kind of made it harder to believe.
Dannie's (ex) girlfriend Katie only appeared when she was needed, when she was a convenient character for him to talk to about his problems and his love for Elliot. We never really learned much about her personality, her life, her dreams, her goals etc. outside of how she related to Dannie. That made her a really weak character and bugged me throughout the entire book. I think she deserved better.
The same goes for Elliott's best friend Sarah. Again, we learn next to nothing about her. And what bothered me most was that she gives him advice and listens to him and supports him through everything and he NEVER asks her about her day, her life etc. What a shitty thing to do! It made their friendship seem so one-sided and strange and made me dislike Elliot as a character.
Dannie was really isolated, his parents are distant and always absent, we learn nothing about them aside from this fact and the fact that they are really rich. Aside from his ex-girlfriend there seemed to be absolutely nobody in his life before he became part of the band. That made him kind of a flat character.
The whole formation of the band seemed kind of unrealistic. I don't know much about the music industry, so maybe that is just me being ignorant, but I felt like everything fell in place just a little too quickly and conveniently.
I think insta-love stories can happen and are fine, I am usually not bothered by it, but it seemed awfully fast and hard to believe here.
The cheesiness got a little too much at times, even for me. Oh dear, the way these boys declared their feelings for each other again and again, was a little cringe-y at times. But maybe I am just not really the demographic for this kind of love story anymore.
Some things were repeated again and again, as if to make the reader believe it, but that didn't help.
Elliot's character seemed to change from scene to scene at times, he just felt a little inconsistent to me.
Do these boys in the band EVER argue? They were five strangers who were thrown together under intense stress and pressure and they spent so much time together in close quarters. Surely there would have been some more tensions?
The big manager-music company boss was so clichéd, he was so very bad without any redeeming characteristics at all that he read more like a stock character than an actual person.
The fact that Danny and Elliot didn't just walk away seemed a little strange to me, but then again they were young and it was a difficult situation. I guess after reading Lance Bass' biography I now appreciate that their situation was, in fact, a really tough one to get out of.
The ending seemed a little too convenient to me. I mean, I understand that this is a HEA romance novel, but still... after the entire book tried to convince me that Elliot and Danny didn't have any other way than to go along with the label's and the PR firms plans, it was all a little too easily resolved in the end. That kind of undermined the entire central conflict of the novel for me.
So all in all I liked the love story, even though it was extremely cheesy. I liked the way the relationship between Danny and Elliot progressed and how they tried to deal with everything as best they could. There were some really believable fights between them and some believable bumps on their road. I liked that part of their relationship dynamic a lot, it seemed quite realistic and well-executed to me. But there were just too many things that
Side note: Omg, is the music industry really this terrible?! Are PR firms really this involved and crazy good at covering stuff up and constructing a public image? If it is, that is really really scary.