4 stars
Ryan is the lead singer for a band that is just taking off and heading out on their first big headlining tour. The band has been together several years now, and they are starting to break down and break apart. They don’t really like each other anymore, which isn’t really helped by the fact that Ryan is an artiste, who is all about the music, and just wants to live in obscurity. (With, you know, the benefits of not being obscure, like beautiful partners, drugs, alcohol, etc, etc.) One of their regular roadies is injured, and they end up hiring a new one. Brendon catches Ryan’s interest because he ignores him, and then Ryan gets a shock when Brendon announces that he is gay. Oh, yes. Did I mention it was the 1970s? 1974, to be precise. Ryan loudly proclaims to everyone that he is not gay, but can’t help being a little obsessed with Brendon. As the tour progresses, Ryan feels more and more adrift, and it seems as though the only person who is there for him or even notices him, is Brendon.
This is real person fan fiction, which in theory, squicks me out. However, the real people are always famous people, who perpetuate their own fiction that they want the world to see or know them by, so I tend to view it more as fiction of a somewhat fictional character. Now, if authors said it was real person fiction of people they actually knew and knew well, I’d be out of there in a shot. Besides, I can’t always see the delineation between rpf and someone writing a biography about…oh, Alexander the Great, for example. Because the author makes a lot of suppositions in both cases. Perhaps the major difference is that one is (educated) speculation and the other is strictly wish fulfillment. I don’t think either fully get at the true person they are writing about, though. But I digress.
This is also first person present tense (ohhhh, how I dislike present tense), so when I say that I barely noticed it, that means that the author really drew me in to the story. Also: cliffhanger. So, I wasn’t predisposed to like this story at all. But I did. I really did. I know from reading reviews of the other two volumes that Ryan matures a lot by the end, which he needs to do in order to become anything resembling a human being. I know that Ryan has some reason for being the way he is, but his egotistical, narcissistic, addicted, denying self got to be a little bit too much for me at times. The secondary characters were really well drawn, in that they each had their own characteristics and quirks and off-putting moments. (Some of them quite a bit of those moments.) Brendon was sweet and sunshine and just what Ryan needed, but remained an enigma throughout most of the book. However, since Ryan is the narrator, the only POV we are privy to, and a very unreliable one at that (seriously, I can’t remember a time that he wasn’t high or drunk for any significant stretch of time. Like, maaayyybe 24 hours, once?), who basically stopped growing up after a certain instance in his childhood, I’m taking his view of everyone with a grain of salt, and cannot wait to read the next instalment. ( )

Can be read online or downloaded HERE.

2nd read: Feb 2022

Um, so… Starting a reread while still recovering from the emotional sucker punch this series gave me? The best (and the most masochistic) idea I’ve had for some time.

That ending, god!



While I could never bring myself to hate Ryan, and I just want to hug him and tell everyone who’s ever hurt him to fuck right off (that includes you, Spencer, you fucker), I really wanted to punch his lights out during those last two conversations with Brendon. WHY TF did he say that shit, when it was clear it was tearing him apart? That contrary asshole!

Now, for book two… Am I ready for some more first-class angst and heartbreak?



Actually, I don’t think so, but I’m going in, anyway. ( )