#CBR8 Book 79: "Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon" by Matt Fraction, David Aja and Javier Pulido

Page count: 136 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

I didn't know a whole lot about Hawkeye outside of the Marvel comic book movies, where he's clearly an excellent bowman and reclusive family man, but also Black Widow's wise-quipping sidekick. I've heard good things about Matt Fraction's run on this comic for years, and since it was on our shelf, this summer seemed like the right time to finally check it out. I'm so glad I did.

In the comic, Hawkeye, or Clint Barton as he's known when he's not a part of the Avengers, is not a family man. In the first issue of this trade (the first five issues and a special of Young Avengers, showing how Kate Bishop and Hawkeye first met), he gets a dog, but he appears to live alone and be quite content with that. The closest thing he has to a family is Kate Bishop, his young protegee, who may be the only one in the world as good as (or even better with) arrows than he is.

In my review of the first volume of Captain Marvel, I complained that I didn't really find out much about who she was as a person, or what the exact nature of her powers were (I found out later that apparently while it is labelled as volume 1, it's strictly speaking more like volume 4 in the ongoing Kelly Sue DeConnick-written adventures of Captain Marvel, which would probably explain why it felt like I was missing a LOT - bad marketing move there, guys). This is more what I expected from the first trade about a superhero (albeit a human one with no actual superpowers, just a dedicated training regime and amazing archery skills).

Matt Fraction writes a very likable Hawkeye, who will risk his own safety to rescue a dog in traffic, spend a lot of his own money to save the people in his neighbourhood from being evicted, who will team up with his teenage sidekick to outsmart a circus full of bad guys, can easily escape car chase with his quiver full of seemingly useless novelty arrows, is quite the ladies man, and occasionally a very decent secret agent and decoy. I loved the action and humour, the easy-going relationship between Clint and Kate (although the Young Avengers story at the end was my least favourite of the issues in the trade) and seeing some of the stuff Barton might get up to when he's not one of the more physically vulnerable of the Avengers. The writing is clever and fun and the art was also very well done. With a colour palette of mostly dark colours, the comic gets a noir aesthetic which adds to my enjoyment.

Sadly, because the Oslo public library system seems to mainly prioritise NORWEGIAN books (strange that) and not really American superhero comics of any kind, the husband and I have to buy all the comics and graphic novels we read. So while I really want more of this, I suspect I'm going to have to wait a while (as we've spent well over our summer budget already while in New York).

Judging a book by its cover: I think the mostly black and white, rather stark cover, with the purple (Hawkeye's signature colour) details in the form of bullseyes (cause he's an archer, see what they did there?) is really eye-catching and cool. The art style mirrors that inside the comic really well and while the use of arrows in the font can be a bit seen as a bit hokey, I like it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 77-78: "Chew, vol 2: International Flavor" and "Chew, vol 3: Just Desserts" by John Layman and Rob Guillory

Total page count: 256 pages
Chew, vol 2: 4 stars
Chew, vol 3: 3 stars

Chew is a truly strange comic book where a lot of the characters have abilities out of the ordinary with regards to food and drink. Tony Chu, our hero, is cibopathic. This means that he gets a psychic impression from everything he ingests. This can mean that he can picture the tree an apple came from or see the field a vegetable was grown in and how it came to be harvested, or he can experience the last moments of a pig before it's slaughtered and turned into sausage. The only thing that doesn't give off a psychic impression? Beets. Tony eats a LOT of beets.

Because of his unusual powers, Tony is a detective with the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, which is the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world in this comics universe. He can get psychic impressions by taking a bite of anything left at the crime scene (very often dead bodies). A few years ago (in this world) a bird flu pandemic swept the world, meaning that chicken has been totally banned for human consumption. As a result, people do the craziest things to get some. There are chicken smugglers, underground chicken restaurants and all sorts of shenanigans.

I read the first volume of Chew, Taster's Choice back in December 2012 (it was a Christmas present from the husband). In that book, Chu is recruited into the FDA and paired up with a cibopathic partner. After a lot of bad (and occasionally disgusting) stuff goes down, Tony's partner reveals himself to be rather unstable, and goes rogue. Tony's former partner from the Philadelphia PD, John Colby, is hit in the face with a large meat cleaver. At the start of book 2, International Flavor, we discover that John didn't die, but instead had state of the art surgery and thanks to several bionic upgrades is not only still alive, but now also works for the FDA. He is, in fact, Tony's new partner!

Tony's boss, Captain Appelbee, hates him (I suspect the reasons for this are made obvious in book 1, but I can't remember). He keeps trying to send him on any assignment that involves Tony having to ingest something truly disgusting. At the beginning of book 2, Colby saves Chu from having to taste a sample from a very large pile of poo found at a crime scene, by insisting on using good old-fashioned detective work (and his new bionic upgrades) to solve the case. This also leads to their discovery of a new fruit, which tastes just like chicken when cooked.

Tony takes a holiday and travels to the island paradise of Yamapalu to find out more about this mysterious new product. Also on the island is his brother, Chow Chu, a five star gourmet chef, recently hired by a new resort hotel. Once on Yamapalu, Tony meets a rival cop, from the USDA. She is investigating the disappearance of several world class chefs and Tony starts getting worried about his brother's safety. The USDA agent thinks the missing chefs are somehow connected to the recent discovery of the fruit, called Gallus Sapadillo or 'galsberry', on the island. Since it was found, the governor of the island has banned chicken of all kinds, in his attempts to make the fruit a viable chicken substitute. The USDA agent suspects foul play of some sort.

Then she turns up dead, and Tony was seen very publicly fighting her shortly before her death. Chu is arrested, but once his name is cleared, he teams up with police chief Raymond Kulolo. While imprisoned, Tony (after biting one of his fellow cell mates in self defence when said goon tried to beat the crap out of him) discovers that several of the recent deaths on the formerly peaceful island are because of people trying to locate a very special fighting rooster, Poyo, used in an underground cock fighting ring on the island. Chu and Kulolo team up to track down the mighty Poyo, while Tony also tries to prevent something sinister happening to his brother.

Book 3, Just Desserts, is a lot more episodic and therefore read as a lot more disjointed. Tony Chu is now dating Amelia Mintz, a food writer who is a Saboscrivner. She can write about food so accurately that people get an actual sensation of taste when reading about the meals she describes. For Tony, who is overwhelmed by psychic sensations every time he eats or drinks anything that isn't beets, Amelia's writing is his only way to experience food like normal people. The first issue is them going on their first date, undercover at an exclusive dining club, where the members try to eat as many endangered species as possible. The book also sees the return of former police chief of Yamapalu, Raymond Kulolo, although this time, he's dead. We also meet Poyo the battle rooster again. Finally, in this book, we get to meet more of Tony's family. We discover that he's a twin, whose sister is known as Toni (I loved this) and that there are a whole host of different family members, not all too happy with Tony's job. His rogue former partner also makes an appearance, setting up for things to come in later books, I suspect.

I really like the strange and oddball characters and the really unusual world building in this comic. Tony Chu is a really nice protagonist and his special power is both cool and a bit depressing. Being able to eat nothing but beets seems pretty dreary, even if it gives him a unique edge at work. He can identify a murderer easily enough, but it means resorting to actual cannibalism. The writing is witty and fun, and the art by Rob Guillory is absolutely excellent. While things can get a bit disgusting at times (seriously, some of the stuff Chu has to eat), the stories are mostly very entertaining and I can't wait to see what comes next for Tony, John, Amelia and the others.

Judging a book by its cover: The covers of these two trades will give you some impression of the artwork inside. Book 2 shows Tony and his new partly bionic partner, John, while also showing us the island of Yamapalu, depicted in exactly the same shape as the pile of dung that Tony's boss hopes he'll be forced to take a bite of to solve the first crime of the book. The third book shows Amelia and Tony at dinner in the first story, with Tony's first cibopathic partner looming ominously over them behind the table. I really like these covers, just as I love the in-comic art.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 76: "Captain Marvel, vol 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More" by Kelly Sue DeConnick and David Lopez

Page count: 136 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Carol Danvers, who is apparently a hot-shot pilot and one of the Avengers, lives in the crown of the Statue of Liberty (you can do that?) with her sister and niece. When the Avengers find an escape pod from a spaceship with an alien refugee inside it, they decide that Carol be the one to return the girl to her homeworld, as well as take up a more permanent presence in space as a representative for the Avengers Initiative. As she returns the girl to her home planet, she discovers that they are in dire need of help, as much of the populace (already relocated from another planet) is sick and dying. Now the aliens are fighting another forced resettlement and Carol decides to help them.

Considering this is the first trade of a new Captain Marvel run, extremely little was done to explain who Carol Danvers is or what her powers are. At the end of the first issue, there is a brief one page explanation of how she ended up where she is (rendered as a child's drawing), but I really didn't think I learned enough to really feel like I got to know the character. She's brave, she can fly, she's apparently part alien. She likes Star Wars, she has a cat called Chewie (who may or may not be some sort of alien beastie that Rocket Raccoon really wants to murder) and she's a very good pilot. She was possibly in a relationship with Rhodey, the Iron Patriot, but decided to go off and live in space for an unspecified amount of time instead. I just don't think I was given enough to decide whether I even like this character or not.

This trade collects the first five issues of the run and I sadly found the story a bit too disjointed and confusing to entirely engage me. It starts with a dramatic action set-piece and then flashes back to several weeks previous. There is a guest appearance by the Guardians of the Galaxy (who I now care a lot more about because of the movie). I had trouble caring about what happened, even if there were quite a few quips and the art was well done throughout. I wasn't expecting a full and drawn-out origin story just because this was the first trade in an ongoing series, but a bit more back story would have been appreciated. As it is, I'm not sure I care enough about Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel to seek out further issues of this. I have enough ongoing comic books to follow as it is.

Judging a book by its cover: Fairly dynamic cover pose. Carol Danvers with a bit of a Natalie Dormer smirk pulling on gloves and looking bad-ass. I very much appreciate that unlike so many female superhero costumes, there is nothing gratuitous or exploitative about Captain Marvel's costume. It's functional and practical.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR8 Book 75: "Castle Waiting, vol 1" by Linda Medley

Page count: 457 pages
Rating: 4 stars

The opening story of Castle Waiting, which explains how the castle came to be abandoned, so to speak, is a variation on Sleeping Beauty. Only once the princess is awakened from her century of sleep and the hedge surrounding the castle lets people in and out, she goes off with her prince and pretty much forgets about the place where she slumbered and the people in it. As the years pass, the castle becomes a refuge for various outcasts and odd characters, with the princess' now elderly handmaidens being the only original inhabitants still staying there.

The second story concerns the journey of a mysterious lady, who is revealed to be pregnant, who after travelling for months, arrives at the castle, seeking sanctuary. Once the baby is born, she reveals that the baby's father is not her husband, and while not much is revealed about the baby daddy, the child has green skin and his father apparently had horns, at least, so he's clearly something a bit out of the ordinary. I'm assuming more about the lady Jain and her baby may be revealed in future volumes, it's not actually given that much focus here.

We are also given the story of the nun, sister Peaceful, and her order of bearded nuns. Turns out, Peaceful was originally a tavern keeper's daughter, until she started growing a beard and decided to join the circus. There she discovers they already have a bearded lady (who becomes her BFF) and the two eventually run off and discover the convent of the Solicitine nuns, all of whom have facial hair. My favourite story was probably that of the Mother Superior of the order, and her life before she came to the convent.

Linda Medley studied folklore and it shows in her gentle twist on a number of fairy tales. It's only really the first tale that is a version of Sleeping Beauty. The rest of the book involves more of an anthology of tales involving the various inhabitants of Castle Waiting or people they've met before they came there. The art and lettering is absolutely gorgeous throughout, and reminded me a bit of Charles Vess (who among other things illustrated Neil Gaiman's Stardust and some issues of Sandman). There is a strong feminist theme to many of the stories, with female friendship being an important common denominator throughout the book.

Only the final story of the book, involving a greedy mill owner making things difficult for the Solicitine nuns didn't really work for me. That one was boring. Other than that, there are a lot of quirky and unusual characters making friendships and forming bonds throughout the stories. Found family is absolutely a big thing here. This is once again one of those books that has languished on my shelves for years and years without me ever picking it up. I'm glad I finally did. It was well worth some hours of my time.

Judging a book by its cover: I have a lovely hardcover edition of Castle Waiting, vol 1. The spine is green and the cover image feature all of the various inhabitants of the castle, in a full colour illustration. As the inside illustrations are all in black and white, it's nice to see the characters in colour, at least once.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 74: "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

Page count: 528 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Francie Nolan grows up in the tenements of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York in the early years of the 20th Century. The granddaughter of German and Irish immigrants, Francie and her younger brother Neeley (real name Cornelius) grow up dirt poor, but thankfully don't really realise it until they get older. Their mother, Katie, works hard as a janitress to make sure they have a place to stay and food on the table. Their father, Johnny, is handsome and charming, a gifted singer, and a drunk. He works as a singing waiter when he can, but is too unreliable to hold down a steady job. Francie and Neeley help out as best they can, collecting junk and selling it for pennies.

The daughter and sister of women who never even learned how to read and write, Katie Nolan values education above all, and is determined that both of her children are going to get educated, whatever the cost. Even before the children are literate themselves, she reads them a page from the Bible and from the collected works of Shakespeare. Francie is quiet and bookish and loves the local library, determined to read her way through every book on the shelves, from A to Z. She reads a book a day and does well in school, so well that the family lie about her address so she can go to a better school in a more prosperous part of town.

Francie works hard to do well in school, but has to get a job rather than go to high school, or her family can't manage. She doesn't give up on her dream of going to college eventually, though, and through perseverance and determination, slowly manages to achieve her goals.

I'm sure a lot of American teenagers possibly read this book at some point during their school years. Written in the 1940s, when it wouldn't have been as much of a historical novel as it is now, it is a wonderful, if very sad and affecting, portrayal of what growing up poor in Brooklyn pre-World War I would have been like. It's a book that doesn't shy away from showing the harsh realities of being poor and hungry, but it's not an utterly miserable book, by any means. The Nolan children may not have a lot of money, but they are taught to be responsible, work hard and they have their pride. Katie Nolan doesn't take charity from anyone and when her husband, who she stole away from her best friend because Katie just knew she had to have him, turns out to be weak and unreliable, well, then she just shoulders more of the burden of providing for the family. Johnny Nolan may be a drunk, but he's never violent, abusive or cruel and he does what he can to take care of his wife and children.

As she grows older, it becomes very obvious to Francie that her mother will always love Neeley best, and she quietly resents her mother for this fact. At the same time, she herself admits that she loves her father more, as he seems to see her and understand her in a way her mother never could. She's a fairly lonely child, finding it hard to trust women other than her closest kin, having seen the judgemental nature of many of the women in the neighbourhood. Living mainly in her books, she nonetheless sees the realities of life and the frailties of human nature all around her in the tenements and in the marriages of her parents and aunts.

Even with snatches of humour and the occasional hint of levity, the book really is very sad for a lot of the story, because there is nothing nostalgic or romantic about being the working poor. As Francie comes of age, she is fully aware how often she and her family are judged, and hard they must work just to make ends meet, let alone to put something aside for a rainy day. She comes to share her mother's opinion that education is the way out of poverty and does her very best to excel in school.

This book made me smile, it made me sad, and towards the end, it made me actually sob, because I had been so engrossed in the story that I didn't want it to end. About two thirds of the way through, the story was getting so grim and I was so despondent that I spoiled the rest of the story on Wikipedia. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read to the end if I didn't know that things were going to get better for the Nolans eventually.

A wonderful coming of age story, chronicling a very real past, with a wonderful set of characters. Francie's immediate and extended family are all wonderful. This book is a beloved classic for a reason. It's a sad and emotional reading experience, but is not relentlessly bleak all the way through and there is hope and a promise of a better life for the surviving characters at then end of the story. 

Judging a book by its cover: The version I read has a simple and elegant cover, with the major colours being green (along the spine) and brown, towards the bottom of the book and reflected in the font used for the title. There is a faint sketch of a tree behind the title, also done in greens. It's a good cover, if nothing flashy or too exciting.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 73: "Bone" by Jeff Smith

Page count: 1341 pages
Rating: 4 stars

The three Bone cousins Fone Bone (renamed Hero Bone in my head), Smiley Bone (Comic Relief Bone) and Phoney Bone (Greedy, or frequently Insufferable, Bone) have been driven out of their home town of Boneville because Phoney Bone had some sort of get rich quick scheme and scammed the entire town, and now an angry mob has driven them off. They are wandering in the wilderness when they are attacked by a huge swarm of locusts and end up in a mysterious forest in a valley, separated for quite some time.

Fone Bone befriends a small leaf-like bug called Ted and meets a large red dragon, before he is introduced to a pretty girl, Thorn, and her grandma Rose. He also encounters furry, sharp-toothed, pointy-eared rat creatures, who would very much like to eat him. He is eventually re-united with his cousins, who are working in the local tavern at Barrelhaven. As Phoney tries to make himself rich by fixing the betting for the annual cow race, Thorn keeps having strange dreams about her past. It also seems like there are strange and sinister things afoot with the rat creatures, their leader Kingdok, and a mysterious hooded individual, all looking for the Phoney Bone, who wears a star on his shirt.

As Thorn is alerted to the fact that dragons are in fact real, her dreams start coming all the more frequently, and she remembers more about her past, before she ended up in the remote valley with her grandma. She discovers that her grandmother has been lying to her all her life and that there is a reason the rat creatures and the Hooded One are after both Phoney Bone and her for a reason. Can Fone Bone and his cousins help Thorn achieve her destiny? Can they stop the sinister Lord of the Locusts from rising and destroying the world? Will Phoney ever stop trying super annoying Get Rich Quick schemes and making himself unpopular with everyone around him?

I bought my mammoth collected edition of Bone so many years ago I don't even remember not owning it. Have I ever read it before now? That would be a resounding no. Collecting the 55 issues (and nine different books) of the fantasy adventure comic, my edition is a whopping 1341 pages and that makes for quite the unwieldy reading experience. Every time I've considered starting it, I've looked at the size of the book and reconsidered. So in the great comics read of 2016, it was imperative that I finally read this huge book, which I think has moved house with me at least twice.

For the first third or so of the book, I was not impressed. The book starts slow and spends way too long with the Bones just plodding around doing nothing in some remote village. I think Phoney convincing Smiley to dress up like a cow so they can rig the cow race, or Fone Bone wandering around, moonstruck and infatuated with Thorn, writing atrocious love poetry are things that are supposed to be funny, but to me it was just annoying and puerile. It was painfully obvious from the very beginning, even before it was revealed that Thorn had mysterious dreams, what her actual origin was and I would have like the comic so much more if the main focus had been on her and the power struggle with the Lord of the Locusts, instead of countless digressions featuring hapless bald gnome-like beings making me want to tear my hair out.

Once the quest to restore Thorn to her rightful place in the world begins, and there's war brewing and an army of rat creatures and soforth, and Fone Bone stops believing that he could EVER have a chance with a human girl (I have no idea what sort of creatures the Bones are supposed to be, but an inter-species romance between them and humans seems pretty far-fetched, and this is coming from someone who has read any number of shifter romances) and just gets with the helping her program, the book gets a lot better. That Phoney Bone is off-screen for literally hundreds of pages and I don't have to read about his greedy schemes to defraud others was also a plus.

The art is absolutely spectacular. The main fantasy adventure story, when it actually kicks off, is really fun. This book once again reminded me how much I absolutely loathe the trope of early fantasy (thanks Tolkien!) of spending hundreds and hundreds of pages of set-up where nothing much of any importance happens before we get to the good stuff. I am way happier now that most fantasy no longer utilises this trope.

Thorn is quite an engaging heroine and it's not her fault that anyone who's read more than two fantasy narratives ever can tell what her story is from the page she first appears. When Smiley Bone was separated from Phoney and stopped being just idiotic Comic Relief, he was actually very sweet. Even Phoney Bone wasn't a complete waste of space. He clearly actually cares for his cousins and it is explained further into the story that the three are orphans, with Phoney being the eldest, always trying to protect the other two. When he's not actively trying to scam someone to make himself rich (something like 90% of all his appearances in the book), he's not too bad. Grandma Rose was a pretty cool lady, although she appears to have supernatural strength, speed and healing ability, considering the feats she achieves over the course of the story.

I was seriously unsure of what rating to give this collection. If I was only rating the first third, I would probably have ended up on 2 stars. But as the story gets going, it really is very engaging and there are some cool twists and turns. I did come to really like the two cowardly sentry rat creatures, and Bartleby was a darling. I also developed a strange affection for Kingdok, the giant, toothy-grinned leader of the rat creatures, even though he's clearly one of the villains. The art really is so beautiful throughout and if I'd read this as a young teenager, when I had a lot more patience for slow set-ups, I would probably have loved the whole thing. There is a lot of humour (even though I personally found a lot of it annoying rather than funny. According to my husband, I am crazy for not liking the stupid cow race), which is nice, especially because so much fantasy nowadays is all grim and dark. As I can't start with quarter stars (that way madness lies), and the book is better than 3.5, a full four stars it is.

Judging a book by its cover: Sadly, having seen some of the other covers for the collected edition of Bone, I think my edition has one of the most boring and plain covers of the various editions. Fone Bone sitting alone on a rock in the forest. On the back cover, there are little colourized pictures of Phoney, Thorn, Smiley, the Red Dragon and Kingdok, and on the spine, you can see one of the rat creatures attacking Fone Bone in the woods (that's the picture that seems to be the actual cover image on several editions). I wish my book had looked a bit more exciting.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 72: "Idol" by Kristen Callihan

Page count: 307 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Liberty "Libby" Bell (yes, her parents named her Liberty when their surname was Bell, I don't know why you'd do that to a child either!) has been living as a veritable recluse in her grandparents' old farmhouse on an island in the Carolinas (I think, there's an author's note about how the place obviously doesn't really exist blah blah) since her parents died in a car accident the year before. She apparently makes her living as a book cover designer (cool job - not one I've come across in romance before, not that we EVER see her doing any work). She comes home to find a man passed out on her lawn, his large, expensive motorcycle having destroyed part of her front yard before it got wrapped around her fence. Since he is clearly dead drunk, Libby wakes "Lawn Bum", as she mentally christens him by spraying him with her garden hose. He wakes up, swears a lot, proceeds to get completely undressed and vomits all over her.

Killian James is the guitarist and one of the lead singers of Kill John, the biggest rock band on the planet (they're never just moderately famous people, nope, super celebrity, obvs). On the anniversary of his bandmate Jax' suicide attempt, he got himself hammered into oblivion and went joyriding on his bike, ending up in Libby's front yard. He hasn't wanted to touch his guitars or make any music for a year, but after spending some time with the grouchy, snarky hermit woman who cleaned him off and fed him, despite her misgivings, he feels his inspiration returning. Normally surrounded by clamoring fans or press people, he enjoys that Libby clearly has no idea who he is. He understands why she retreated to the island when her parents died, and could quite happily stay hidden away in the house right next door to her forever. But his manager won't stop calling, and it's time to get the band together again.

Killian doesn't want to go back on tour without Libby. Having discovered that she can sing, play guitar and makes her own songs (her parents were a session guitarist and a backing singer, respectively), Killian wants her to play some songs with the band. Libby doesn't want to leave the safety of her farmhouse, and she certainly doesn't want to go on stage with a hugely successful rock band in front of tens of thousands of people. Nor does she want people to think Killian is only giving her a chance to sing because he wants to get in her pants. But if he leaves and goes on tour, is she ever going to see him again? What would a world-class rock star really see in a shy little homebody like Libby Bell?

If your business tycoon/billionaires are the dukes of contemporary romance, the athletes and various sportsball players the viscounts, then surely the rock stars have to be the earls. In the last few years, I've read rock star romances by Kylie Scott (the Stage Dive series) and Nalini Singh (Rock Kiss), but if you google "rock star romance", there are SO many hits. Again, as I pointed out, the rock stars in question are not really your run of the mill just made their first album, starting out sort of guys. Nope, they're always the biggest, most popular rock gods in the world, recognised by everyone everywhere. They're also, always, super gorgeous. I'm doing a mental image search of the lead singers of some of the big rock bands around presently - most of them look like hipstery grad students, NOT romance heroes. So here is absolutely an example where romance really does NOT mirror reality.

While I really liked all three of Kristen Callihan's Game On books (I thought the series was completed with book 3, The Game Plan, but I was wrong, there is a new one out in February next year), this was less great. Going by her Goodreads updates, my friend Erica was frustrated enough with the book that she actually DNF'd it. I can't say I see what was quite so annoying about it, but it certainly didn't grab me and keep me engrossed like her sportsball NA books did.

I have many quibbles:

• First of all, there was quite a lot of tell, not show, in this book. We are told that Killian and Libby have all these things in common and that they talk about everything under the sun, but we are rarely actually party to these conversations. We are also told about Libby's job, but she's one of these contemporary romance protagonists who don't ever actually appear to have to do anything to make a living. Perhaps her parents' deaths left her independently wealthy? If so, this is never touched on.
• Despite never having performed on stage (she has crippling stage fright, and was strongly discouraged by her parents to go into a career in music), Libby isn't just good at playing the guitar and singing, she's absolutely awesome. After one song, she's won over the entirety of Killian's band, not just the guy who has the hots for her. They have no qualms about having her sing along on several of the songs on their international reunion tour. 
• As seems to be the case far too often, Killian isn't just well-endowed, he has a veritable monster in the pants region. Here I'm going to have to agree with my friend Erica - what is wrong with reasonably-sized, but well-favoured once in a while? Why do they always have to be super-huge? 
• Speaking of the pants-region, far too much of Killian's emotional and physical state at any given point seems to be expressed with reference to what his balls are doing or how they are feeling. I went back and counted - fifteen separate mentions - of Mr. Rock God's dangly bits. 
• For people who are both apparently great at writing song lyrics, both Libby and Killian SUCK at communication. Using their actual words to express to one another what and how they feel - not a thing they excel at. It's one of the things that keeps the conflict of the romance drawn out longer than should have been necessary.

There are good things about the book too. I really liked the supporting cast (I'm sure many, if not all, of the band members are going to star in future books). Scottie, the band's drop-dead gorgeous, but oh so cold and correct manager is the star of the next book, out in October, if Ms. Callihan is to be believed. Killian's cousin, Brenna, who manages the band, seems pretty cool, and I liked that she and Libby started to form a friendship, even though both admitted to barely having female friends before. There is a lot of fun banter and if the main couple had just been better at communicating, with each other and those around them, the main conflict of super famous rock star and reclusive nobody suddenly thrust into the spotlight could have been more interesting. So far, this book is less good than Callihan's other contemporaries, but still more entertaining than her historical paranormal fantasy ones. I shall give Scottie's book a try, and hope that it's an improvement.

Judging a book by its cover: So with her sportsball New Adult romances, Kristen Callihan's books all feature burly dudes in various stages of undress (usually shirtless) seen from the front (with their heads conveniently cut off, or at least their faces obscured). But on the cover of the book about a rock star who is described as ALWAYS ending up shirtless on stage during his gigs, there is a fully clothed dude, with his back to the camera. His ass is even mostly hidden by his guitar. Poor use of ogling material, cover designers. That's all I'm saying. At least the dude has short hair (Libby cuts Killian's long tangled hair short in one very steamy scene in the book). This cover is quite boring, I find. It doesn't capture the dynamic nature of good rock stars or the energy of the band described in the book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.