In the Band by Jean Haus

Before, we start this review, I would like to warn you that this is a COMPLETE guilty pleasure read. Is it great? No. Is it the highest form of literature? No. Is everyone going to like it? No. Do I care? No. It's about a girl who gives up a drumming scholarship to the college of her dreams and is having a hard time. Riley's friends end up convincing her to audition for a rock band to try and get her back in the swing of things and she gets the part. Only, the guy in charge of the band, Romeo (more on that later), is a jerk and wants her to quit so, of course, this leads to some romantic tension.

So, first and foremost, it's bad. In terms of plot, and characters, it's pretty bad. Not in an unenjoyable way, but it's just so cliche and predictable that it's laughable. And Romeo? Right off the bat, the name is just so obvious! The band's name is Luminescent Juliet. Eye rolls left and right. That being said, this book was still very enjoyable to me. I read it super quickly and I couldn't put it down. It had it's flaws though. The characters didn't matter much besides the two main ones. The rest, I cared about because they were good people, but not because I knew much about their personality. This book, like many others, tries to have its serious moments with something that the main character is going through, in this case, Riley's parents are going through a divorce, but it was all so predictable. It's like in every cheesy teen rom-com there's a check list and a somewhat serious sub-plot is always one of them in attempts to make the audience connect with the characters and to make the plot seem like more than just teen drama, but I have to say I wasn't able to connect with that sub-plot as much as I would have liked. There were also some other situations that were, again, just things that needed to be checked off. For instance, a make out scene, a "maybe he's not as bad as I thought" scene, and a world starts crashing down on the main character scene.

BUT, I still found this book entertaining. This is just one of those things that you just have to take it for what it is and you'll probably like it if you do, otherwise, you'll end up hating easily. This book isn't for everyone but if you are in the mood for a cheesy cliche book, this isn't as bad as others I've read. Again, total guilty pleasure but still decently written and NO LOVE TRIANGLE. Sorry, but I've been burned by a few recently. For what it is, 4 out of 5 stars.