Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by kimu
Fever Pitch by Heidi Cullinan
2.0
Read for Book Riot's Reader Harder challenge for 2017: Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel
Now and then, I'll read a romance novel - although I don't know if I always end up adding them to Goodreads. They tend to be fairly light reads for me, books I pick up between other books when I need a break from serious topics. None of those books has been an LGBTQ+ romance though, and so when I came across this category on the Book Riot list, I was both interested in reading something totally new and a little unsure about where to look for suggestions on what to read. This particular book came up on multiple "best of" lists for 2015 and was a finalist for awards, so I thought it would be a solid pick. In retrospect, I feel like I should have tried harder to find something that was a better fit for my interests - but I really got pulled in by the topic (music! in college!) and the cover (gah, I judged a book by it's cover).
I think this book could have been about 2/3 as long and been much stronger. Despite that, I really enjoyed the musical elements and the sort of YA "coming of age" elements to the story. There were A LOT of characters in this book, to the point where I kept losing track and having to go back to sort out who some of the more minor characters were. There were also quite a few really unnecessary bits - the part about changing last names so kids would have the same name as their parents grated on my nerves quite a bit, and was totally superficial to the storyline. My biggest critique of the story overall was that everything turns out so great. Right, I love a happy ending as much as the next person, but I had an extremely hard time suspending belief to the point where everything turned out this incredibly perfectly. You can have a happy ending in a romance novel without everything being absolute perfection for all the characters. And don't even get me started on the degree of privilege among these characters - it was pretty astonishing that everyone who got in serious trouble ended up having friends with wealthy (or at least very well off) parents who could drop $4k instantly on new clothes and computers for the friends of their kid. That whole thing is... troubling to me. It crossed the line from being a believable story about two young guys who fall for each other into a fairy tale that was beyond unlikely.
All of that said, there was something that kept nagging at me as I was reading this book and the inconsistencies and hyperboles piled up. It wasn't until I went back to write this review that I realized the author herself was not LGBTQI+. Given the major discussions that have gone on in literary communities over the last few years about cultural appropriation, I was curious if there was a similar dialog going on around LGBTQI+ communities. At least online, I found very little discussion of the topic - more around the lines of, hey, anyone can write anything as long as they're respectful, which is strange to me because it seems out of line with where this dialog has moved with respect to other literature. Knowing that the author is not LGBTQI+ gave me a little more insight into how things end up turning so fantastically well in this storyline. I am still surprised that there is so little discussion of this in reviews.
I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't try harder to come up with an author for this challenge who was LGBTQI+, but I really didn't know where to start with this one (would love suggestions!). Although this book was not a favorite for me, this particular challenge has helped me learn a bit more about the genre and other authors I might be interested in reading. so I'm going to count this as a positive experience.
Now and then, I'll read a romance novel - although I don't know if I always end up adding them to Goodreads. They tend to be fairly light reads for me, books I pick up between other books when I need a break from serious topics. None of those books has been an LGBTQ+ romance though, and so when I came across this category on the Book Riot list, I was both interested in reading something totally new and a little unsure about where to look for suggestions on what to read. This particular book came up on multiple "best of" lists for 2015 and was a finalist for awards, so I thought it would be a solid pick. In retrospect, I feel like I should have tried harder to find something that was a better fit for my interests - but I really got pulled in by the topic (music! in college!) and the cover (gah, I judged a book by it's cover).
I think this book could have been about 2/3 as long and been much stronger. Despite that, I really enjoyed the musical elements and the sort of YA "coming of age" elements to the story. There were A LOT of characters in this book, to the point where I kept losing track and having to go back to sort out who some of the more minor characters were. There were also quite a few really unnecessary bits - the part about changing last names so kids would have the same name as their parents grated on my nerves quite a bit, and was totally superficial to the storyline. My biggest critique of the story overall was that everything turns out so great. Right, I love a happy ending as much as the next person, but I had an extremely hard time suspending belief to the point where everything turned out this incredibly perfectly. You can have a happy ending in a romance novel without everything being absolute perfection for all the characters. And don't even get me started on the degree of privilege among these characters - it was pretty astonishing that everyone who got in serious trouble ended up having friends with wealthy (or at least very well off) parents who could drop $4k instantly on new clothes and computers for the friends of their kid. That whole thing is... troubling to me. It crossed the line from being a believable story about two young guys who fall for each other into a fairy tale that was beyond unlikely.
All of that said, there was something that kept nagging at me as I was reading this book and the inconsistencies and hyperboles piled up. It wasn't until I went back to write this review that I realized the author herself was not LGBTQI+. Given the major discussions that have gone on in literary communities over the last few years about cultural appropriation, I was curious if there was a similar dialog going on around LGBTQI+ communities. At least online, I found very little discussion of the topic - more around the lines of, hey, anyone can write anything as long as they're respectful, which is strange to me because it seems out of line with where this dialog has moved with respect to other literature. Knowing that the author is not LGBTQI+ gave me a little more insight into how things end up turning so fantastically well in this storyline. I am still surprised that there is so little discussion of this in reviews.
I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't try harder to come up with an author for this challenge who was LGBTQI+, but I really didn't know where to start with this one (would love suggestions!). Although this book was not a favorite for me, this particular challenge has helped me learn a bit more about the genre and other authors I might be interested in reading. so I'm going to count this as a positive experience.