How to Kill a Rock Star

(original read: 4/30/11) Maybe it was that I'd read a whole slew of mediocre (and a couple complete shit) books in the last few weeks. Maybe it came at just the right time to knock me off my feet, but regardless of the reason, I absolutely loved this book.

Do you ever read a book and you can just feel it? Deep in your bones, right to your heart, you feel it in every part of your body. That's how I felt for the majority of this book. Like I couldn't absorb it fast enough. It was funny, heartbreaking, thought provoking, angering, at times a little far fetched (but last I checked this was fiction, so I'm a-ok with that), but in the end it was all those things thrown together that made this a book that will soon be going on my bookshelf. show more (For those that don't know, I'm a book whore, but I'm a library book whore. I own very few, because I re-read very few. This will be a re-reader.)

The story is told in three different perspectives, which sounds a little tedious, but I actually enjoyed the way the author did this. We hear from the MC, Eliza, for the majority of the book. However, we also get glimpses at Paul (Paul...I swoon) via his voice recorder, recapping events. And finally, we get a third voice (told in 3rd person) of a character that gets tossed in the mix.

This book revolves mostly around music (writing, singing, playing, the industry, Damn the Man, Save the Empire type stuff), so if it's something you're passionate about, this might just be your cup of tea.

The characters in this had me head over heels from the beginning. Eliza is easy to relate to, Paul is easy to foam at the mouth over, and Loring is...well, I was torn for a lot of this book - let's leave it at that.

What this book boils down to is finding yourself, opening yourself up to new possibilities, and facing your fears. While this one was great on the initial read, I predict it will be even better on the re-read.

***ETA 1/4/2013***

I was right in my prediction. This was stunning on the re-read. And because I actually took time to highlight passages this time around, I'm going to share some of my favorites:

Did I mention how much I wanted to kiss her? I wanted to kiss her lips and her eyelids and the curve in what I'm going to call “the transition area” where her hip flows into her waist. And my desire wasn't just confined to my dick. She made my whole goddamn body taut, like some invisible energy force was pulling me up by the skin.

***

Lying next to Eliza, I had the feeling I'd just found something I didn't even know I'd lost.

***

“Warning: if you insult my heterosexual eminence one more time, I'm going to have to throw you down in the middle of the street and prove myself.”

***

“Is this okay?” he said.

I didn't know if he was referring to his hands, his dancing, or the ultraviolet warmth his body was emitting, but I nodded, moved in closer, and within seconds I let myself slip into a world where there were no sharp edges, where everything was curved and smooth and seamless, like Paul's voice as he hummed Van Morrison in my ear. I felt like I was being zapped between the legs with a stun gun.

***

Eliza has the sky in her eyes and I've always wanted to touch the goddamn sky.

***

The music defied classification. If I had been writing a review of the show, I would have labeled it progressive, guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll. But the guitars made sounds guitars didn't always make. Symphonic sounds. Sacred sounds. The music dug in so deep you didn't hear it so much as feel it, reminding me of a dream I used to have when I was a kid, where I would be standing on a street corner, I would jump into the air, flap my arms, and soar up into the sky.

That's the only way I could describe the music.

It was the sonic equivalent of flight.

And then there was the voice. I'd never heard anyone sing like Paul Hudson. Even Doug Blackman, master storyteller, whose passion and pain could be heard in every holy word he uttered, only wished for a voice like Paul's—a voice that swept up and down the scale and was, at times, filled with deep, lush, apocalyptic emotion, and at other times was a burning falsetto of hope and love and seemed too big to come from his throat, lungs, or diaphragm.

From his soul, I decided.

***

After licking his neck, I wanted to dive into his throat and slide down his esophagus and swim around inside his hands while he strummed.

***

“See that?” Paul said. “Ten goddamn seconds.”

“I don't get it.”

“You didn't even have to hear the whole song, just a few lines, and you still got chills and that swirly, happy-sad feeling in your gut, didn't you?”

“So?”

“So?” he huffed. “That's the difference between the real stuff and the crap. I know which one you are and you know which one I am.” He flipped over and buried his head in his pillow. “That's all the proof you need. Wake me up in an hour.”

***

“Bottom line, Eliza— you're my home and my family, and I don't want to lose you. I could lose everything else, and as long as I still had you and a guitar I know I'd be all right. Do you get what I'm saying?”

***

I wanted to freeze the moment. Freeze it and jump inside of it and stay there until it melted into the warm, swishy liquid of happy memories.

***

I was looking for someplace to store all the things I was feeling—the friction, the contradictions, the unmerciful truth—but my heart, my soul, my eyes and ears and even my toes were locking their doors. They wouldn't let me in. For safety reasons. I had no choice but to throw the feelings away.

***

“Break my heart? Is that what you just said? I have news for you; you didn't break my heart. My heart's fine. My heart's in the best shape of its life. You know what you did to me? You took an AK-47 and blew my soul open."

***

It's pretty simple, really, when you think about it: We all start out as little fishes in our daddy's pants, and we all end up a Thanksgiving feast for the worms, and in the meantime we have to find a couple good reasons to give a fuck.

I've got my girl and my guitar, and for me that's enough. show less

I adored the message of this book: loving what you do so much that you stay true to yourself and won't sell out.

Well, I guess Paul did sell himself out in a way but he fought and fought and fought - and that's what I admired. He kept going and tried to stay true to his principles, even when it didn't always work out.

I love the way this book is written as the emotions (especially for music) are transported very well. The author makes the words come alive and you are right there with the characters. Both points of view were well written and portrayed believable, passionate charcters.

However I disliked the way Eliza handles the tour issue (I'm not going to say more about it at this point as it would ruin the story for others) and I show more couldn't quite reconcile with the end of the book.

Still, four solid stars. show less

How to Kill a Rock Star is one of my favorite reads for 2011. It moved me emotionally and I simply could not put it down. I could say I loved it because the book is beautifully written. Or I could say that the book is a favorite because the dialogue is incredibly witty and funny. Yes, that is all true. But that is not why it affected me so deeply – this book is so powerful because the characters are so completely real. Okay, the book was powerful. The book was a favorite. But what does that mean? It means I stayed up until 2:00 am on a work night to finish it. It means that I cried my eyes out not just once but a three times! It means I got so pissed off at the main characters I almost threw my kindle – more than once. It means that show more I cannot wait to read this book again.
The story is told from the point of view of two main characters: Eliza and Paul. Eliza’s personality is similar to a friend I knew and snippets of her life as written in this book were very similar to my past. This book is a contemporary romance, but it is also more than that. What many romances authors get wrong is that they write characters which are too perfect and perhaps that is part of the fantasy: the characters are extremely beautiful, the sex is over the top amazing, and the relationship proceeds without any road bumps – and oh, of course at least one of the main love interests is unbelievably wealthy. These themes definitely have their place in the romance genre, it is a great escape. But How to Kill is not a romantic escape. It is a romance that baptizes you by dunking your head in cold water – and keeping it under the water until you think you will explode. In a good way, I promise!

How to Kill a Rock Star is not a fantasy romance novel. The characters are described to look like real people; the characters struggle financially and the real world intrudes on making their dreams come true. The most authentic for me in this story, was how the author wrote the romantic relationship. No matter what we fantasize about, the love of our life may not be the most handsome and he may not be the sweetest; sure as hell, he likely won’t be the richest. But even with these imperfections, the love and romance can still be a powerful all-encompassing love. Then there is the ugly side of love. When people are hurt and when they feel betrayed, they may do ugly mean things – to themselves, to each other, to their friends, to their careers; rationality is not always the most followed course during a messy period in a romantic relationship. Ms. DeBartolo does not shy away from writing how relationships devolve, how they break down and how they get ugly. If you are looking for an emotional read that will stay with you for a long time, then I highly recommend this book. Below are some of my favorite quotes from this book:

“For the record, if I were Superman, a pale, scrawny guy holding a guitar would be Kryptonite.”

"I wanted to freeze the moment. Freeze it and jump inside of it and stay there until it melted into the warm, swishy liquid of happy memories."

"I celebrated the scene as one of those rare instances when you actually catch sight of happiness in motion. Happiness made everything soft and shiny like Vaseline on a camera lens."

"The thing is, we loved each other, and on some level we always will, but when you're twenty-three and you fall in love, you tend to think that love will supersede any problems .. no matter how much you love somebody, no matter how desperately you want a relationship to work, life can act as an oxidizer and corrode it to pieces."

"'Come on. We had sex. You have to.' He chuckled. 'Eliza, if that were my only criteria, do you know how many girls would know my real name?'"

“There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.”

“Fate is just another word for people's choices coming to a head. Destiny, coincidence, whatever you name it. It inevitably lies in our hands.”

" ‘All is fair in love and war, right?’ It was, by far, the dumbest cliché I had ever uttered. It was an insult to love and an inadmissible exoneration of war."

"'Eliza, are you crying?' 'It's just that, well, sometimes Happiness hurts.' " show less

How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie DeBartolo is a 2005 Sourcebooks Landmark publication.

While this novel explores many of my favorite things- like fate, loss, and love- and it is set against a rock music backdrop- which should have been right up my alley- the book didn’t hit the right notes for me.

The story follows Eliza, a journalist who wants to write about rock music. Her brother is in a rock band called Bananafish and it is through him that she meets Paul. Despite being complete opposites the two begin seeing each other- but things go awry when Paul does something Eliza thinks compromises his integrity as a musician.

I believe this book might have been inspired, at least in part, by the author’s relationship with musician, show more Jeff Buckley. It’s a sort of homage to music and touches on music as an art form, rather than a commodity- again all things that should have appealed to me-

But I was not a fan of the execution. The author does capture time and place very well, the secondary characters were well-drawn. Unfortunately, Eliza and Paul…. Not so much. I never warmed up to Paul and I just couldn’t muster up a connection to Eliza- despite my best efforts to do so. Putting these characters together as a romantic couple fell flat - zero chemistry. Then comes all the melodrama- which can work for me- but just didn’t go over well in this case.

Then came the ending. Boy, was I ticked. I can do ambiguous- in fact, I’m often a fan of that approach. Open endings can allow me to give the book the ending I want it to have- but in this case it was not a good look… at all.

Overall, I have enjoyed some of this author’s work in the past and will certainly be open to reading more of her work in the future- but this one was a miss all the way around.

1.5 stars show less

This started out really promising. Then DeBartolo committed the first cardinal sin of writing in the first person – she switched character points of view. Not only that but it was without warning and it took me two paragraphs of not understanding how Eliza could possibly be saying what was going on before I figured it out. Honestly, if you can't faithfully tell a story in the first person without switching points of view, use the third person. Which, was another issue. There was Eliza's point of view in the first person, there was Paul's point of view in the first person (being told through a recorded diary) but then she'd switch to other character's points of view in the third person. It made for a very confusing, choppy and amateur show more read.

I started off really liking Eliza. She had some good lines, especially the one when she confronted the woman her boyfriend had run off with (though it made it hard to believe the way she let her boss speak to her and spread rumors about her later on). I liked that there was some foundation to the relationship between Eliza and Paul. We weren't just told they were in love and expected to believe it. Though I wish there was some more focus on their relationship so we could have understood just how much in love they were.

Paul was absolutely adorable. He was so sweet and loving toward her, even when they weren't together yet but he wanted to be with her. I may or may not have swooned a little every time he called her "[his] betrothed." It was so incredibly cute.

As the plot unfolded I could see what Eliza was going to do coming a mile away, but I was hoping she wasn't going to be that stupid. Well, we all know hoping doesn't get us anywhere. It was exceedingly stupid that she did what she did simply because she was unwilling to face her fear. I still can't wrap my head around destroying a relationship and breaking your fiancé's heart because you're too chicken to deal with your issues or to find a reasonable, rational way to deal with the impasse. What she chose to do was paternalistic, condescending and demeaning. She acted as though she knew what was best for Paul and what he may have wanted was completely irrelevant. She even said, "Paul doesn't know what he wants." Actually, no, I think he made what he wanted pretty clear. It just wasn't what she thought he should want.

"I covered my face and shook my head, a dual action born out of self-loathing. Not even when I’d slit my wrist had my self-loathing been so strong. But I hated myself—first, for what I’d done to Paul, second, for what I was doing to Loring, and third, because I had been so unbelievably wrong about everything."

That quote is a perfect summary of that entire plot line. She should hate herself. I certainly hated her. It was also incredibly mean and careless for her to use Loring the way she did knowing how he felt about her. She completely took advantage of him. He was a very sweet and caring guy and didn't deserve to be railroaded by her. Neither did Paul, and I really don't understand why Eliza felt she had a right to want to hate him. Every time she started in on that I wanted someone to slap her – hard.

The time jumps in the book were also jarring. It was difficult to keep up with where they were in time as it went very quickly. Suddenly they were together for a year and I blinked a few times, not understanding how they got there that quickly. Also, I disliked the best friend/sister-in-law. I agree with her that she and Michael had made a deal and it should be honored, but she was so . . . I'm not sure, smug? about it. It just seemed that she didn't care that her husband was giving up his dream, as if it didn't affect her at all to make him do so. And on a personal level, the fact he was doing it so she could to go to law school made me have a minor stroke. Also, I'm not sure why DeBartolo nor her editor did basic research, but unless they recently changed their program Columbia Law doesn't have mid-year enrollment. Vera wouldn't have been able to start until the next fall, not January. That's a minor complaint, but it bothered me nonetheless.

The end was utterly ridiculous on so many levels. It didn't make any sense. Why Paul chose to do it, how it was executed, how he planned to live out the rest of his life, his manager's role in it, Eliza's brother's role in it, and how no one was able to figure it out besides Eliza and the random bar tender. I really wished that Eliza had gotten on a plane and it crashed in Alanis Morissette style irony, and Paul and Loring found better women, but her and Paul's reunion was very sweet. It was too easy though. They got back together and they were immediately engaged again and no real talking happened before then. They did finally get into it (though it was mostly glossed over) but I find it weird that they were immediately back to where they were before she destroyed them as soon as they saw each other again.

There were some things I did appreciate. I was hoping she wasn't going to get into 9/11. It became clear that time was jumping fast so that there was no way to avoid it, but I like that instead of dwelling on it as a cheap ploy to illicit emotion from the reader, it happened, it effected the characters, and they moved on. I also liked that it wasn't a perfect Happily Ever After. Yes, they got their HEA, but it wasn't on the back of getting everything they ever wanted. Finally, there were some really good quotes on the sorry-ass state of music. It was nice reading this knowing someone else agrees with the way I feel.

I really wish this book would be heavily edited to take care of the major problems, because there was a lot of potential in this story and I really wish I could have loved it. show less

Okay, so I just finished my second DeBartolo novel, and some themes: death, rock n roll music, love, obsession are beginning to show throughout in the books.
I love her dialogue: sassy, smart, quick, funny, intelligent. Her books read like screenplays - they can be easily translated to the venue without much revision and her depth of character and storyline is great. I really enjoyed this quick, fast passed novel about rock music, groupies and true love.
That said, I just couldn't like or identify or really even see why Eliza was so wonderful - what was it about her that made everyone that saw her just fall in love with her? I didn't see it, sorry.

Tony described me as "very absorbed" in this book as I neared the end. I didn't love this as much as her first book - which I consumed in one night. Still, something about DeBartolo's writing is just absolutely wonderful. The stories are simple - they're about love and tragedy, but her prose is so beautiful that they never feel old or cliche. Eliza and Paul are perfect characters - actually, all the characters are perfect. I rooted for them the whole time, even when Loring showed up and seemed equally perfect for Eliza. The last third of the book really surprised me and I pieced it together only a few pages before things happened. Wish they were more from this author to read.