artsy musings of a bibliophile

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Review: Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols

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ABOUT THE BOOK
Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols
young adult contemporary published by MTV Books on 16 July 2013

Bailey wasn’t always a wild child and the black sheep of her family. She used to play fiddle and tour the music circuit with her sister, Julie, who sang and played guitar. That ended when country music execs swooped in and signed Julie to a solo deal. Never mind that Julie and Bailey were a duet, or that Bailey was their songwriter. The music scouts wanted only Julie, and their parents were content to sit by and let her fulfill her dreams while Bailey’s were hushed away.

Bailey has tried to numb the pain and disappointment over what could have been. And as Julie’s debut album is set to hit the charts, her parents get fed up with Bailey’s antics and ship her off to granddad’s house in Nashville. Playing fiddle in washed-up tribute groups at the mall, Bailey meets Sam, a handsome and oh-so-persuasive guitarist with his own band. He knows Bailey’s fiddle playing is just the thing his band needs to break into the industry. But this life has broken Bailey’s heart once before. She isn’t sure she’s ready to let Sam take her there again…

THE RATING

THE REVIEW
What I’d like to say to Dirty Little Secret is perfectly worded by Avril Lavigne, “Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?” I struggled with rating this book because frankly, where it lacked in depth in the first half, it definitely more than made up for it before the end. And that wasn’t even an issue when I started reading the book. 
The beginning of Dirty Little Secret was… boring. I honestly didn’t care for Bailey dressing up and playing her fiddle in tribute groups. But then she meets Sam at the mall, plays with him and he zones in on her. Now Bailey has to make a difficult decision, would she risk being seen as the loser sister of a rising star at a gig or cast her eyes down and carry on? This is when I saw life in Bailey and I was finally into the story.
Bailey accepts the gig because let’s face it, spending time at home playing the fiddle endlessly with her grandfather hovering, who wants that? She made a perfect rebel with bold fashion sense, asymmetrical hair, red lips and boots-to-die-for, but she couldn’t go on with it. Same gave her the out and she took it.
But the infamously titled Sam Hardiman’s band is trouble from the start. Oh who am I kidding, Charlotte is hate-worthy. Given that the drummer had a thing for Sam and is still okay with being not okay with whoever Sam dates. Because you see, Sam likes Bailey. But does he like her because she gives the oomph factor to the band or because she is talented?
Sam started out as a pretty normal guy and then he became persuasive as hell and who’d have guessed from that that he was pretty messed up from the inside. So while I was out admiring his ability to make everyone do what he wants to do, I was also in the state where I just wanted to quietly strangle him.
But then Sam said, “I like doing things that make me uncomfortable. I try not to have a comfort zone” and everything was perfectly clear. After going through a hard family life and counselling, you have to admire the guy. And Bailey does. Their conversation is beautiful and where Sam is trying to make up for the lack of channeling his emotions, Bailey is trying to get away from them by writing them down into songs.
I understood Bailey because even though she got treated horribly by her family, she didn’t give up on them. And I understood Sam because he wanted to not be like his father and wind up a loser. So they perform gigs together, discover each other, fight and then it all ends (not necessarily in that order). It was a moment of holding-my-breath-reading where you don’t know what’ll happen and how it’ll all go down. It is a difficult feat to achieve but I was going through it so Echols did achieve it.
Dirty Little Secret more than surprised me and made me feel despite the rocky start. People who like to read music-themed YA must read this. You’ll smile, go argh, get shocked and definitely swoon.
THE QUOTES

“And I was bitter. Bitterness and I were old friends by now, but at the moment bitterness was trying to go down my bra in public.” 

“Deana Carter sings about it. Lady Antebellum sings about it. Eric Church. Gosh, not just country artists. Katy Perry. Everybody has a song about it because everybody’s been through it. You find that person at eighteen and you lose yourself. And the tragedy is, it’s the person who’s completely opposed to everything you’ve ever wanted. You bond with that person, and that person breaks your heart. I’m that tragedy for you, and you’re mine.” 

Thanks to MTV Books and Edelweiss for providing me an eARC of Dirty Little Secret for review.

Review: Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

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ABOUT THE BOOK

young adult contemporary published by Dial Books on 1 November 2010


The Challenge
Piper has one month to get a paying gig for Dumb—the hottest new rock band in school.

The Deal
If she does it, she’ll become manager of the band and get her share of the profits, which she desperately needs since her parents raided her college fund.

The Catch
Managing one egomaniacal pretty boy, one talentless piece of eye candy, one crush, one silent rocker, and one angry girl who is ready to beat her up. And doing it all when she’s deaf. With growing self-confidence, an unexpected romance, and a new understanding of her family’s decision to buy a cochlear implant for her deaf baby sister, Piper just may discover her own inner rock star.

THE RATING

THE REVIEW

Wow, this book is freaking awesome! Five Flavors of Dumb crosses a threshold that at least I never thought could have been crossed. Yes, music is all-consuming and doesn’t require proper functioning of the senses to feel it. But Antony John showed just how it is done; how it is possible to feel the rhythm in your heart and believe in it. There could have been no way for Piper to hear Dumb’s music, but that wasn’t what mattered most when it came down to managing the band.
It all started with a seemingly dumb event at the school’s steps and eventually, rolled out into a grand moment in the lives of the people connected to the band. The title bothered me throughout most of the book, but then I discovered the real five flavors of Dumb. Antony John is a genius for creating such a beautiful and impressive piece of fiction. Five Flavors of Dumb is not about incapabilities or limits. It’s about what you are capable of when you know that your limits extend to far greater lengths than you ever imagined.
Piper is one strong lead character and I never would have thought that I would appreciate a color called ‘Atomic Pink’ in a million years but God, it inspired me! Each one of the members of Dumb and even Piper’s family contributed so much life into the book that it would have been impossible to imagine Five Flavors of Dumb if even a dialogue was changed.
I am in complete awe of Five Flavors of Dumb and of the author, Antony John who dares to take on a subject as fragile as deafness and make it rock. The book is a story about the change that happens when ‘suckiness’ is shed off in order to embrace ‘coolness.’ I was very pleased how the author trashed the stereotypes about rock-able geeks, soft beauty, rock star inclinations, pretty boy smiles and silent rockers.

THE QUOTES

‘Don’t worry about wanting to change; start worrying when you don’t feel like changing anymore. And in the meantime, enjoy every version of yourself you ever meet, because not everybody who discovers their true identity likes what they find.’

‘COOL·NESS [KOOL-NIS] -noun
CATCHING your mom gazing at the crazy crowd like she finally gets it
WATCHING your dad head-banging like he’s Finn’s twin brother
LEARNING that your new friends Tash and Kallie are a thousand times more complicated than you realized, and loving them for it
FEELING every one of your boyfriend’s pounding drumbeats, and thinking it’s the most romantic music ever written
REALIZING you’re completely unique . . . even in a crowd’