West of Mars\' Rocks \'n Reads

I don’t usually do negative reviews, but this book is older and it’s not so terrible. Just… a disappointment. The book is Making Over Mike, written by Lisa Plumley.

I saw this book mentioned a bunch of times on one of the book communities I belonged to a few years ago. So when the opportunity came to trade (in one form or another) for this book, I jumped. And then, it sat here and waited. And waited. And waited its turn (I’ve got a small backlog).

And… the first hundred pages were great fun. I like this sort of romance. It’s easy, it’s puffy, it’s the perfect beach read.

But then, Amanda started to bother me, which was too bad. Her world-view is too narrow. She calls herself a life coach, but what she really is, what’s really going on here, is a reverse Stepford Wives situation. She’s unable to help people be anything but what SHE thinks they ought to be.

It was sad. And it made me not like her very much. And wonder what Mike saw in her.

Mike, on the other hand, is a great character — but after 100 pages of hearing about the April Fool’s Day thing, it got old. Just come out and tell me already!

I wish I’d liked this more. I really do.

First off, be sure to check out my interview with author David Grant. Remember the books that arrived in my PO Box, covered in beer? You can find out all about them now — and enter to win one of two copies that aren’t covered in beer.

While we’re rockin’ along with the books that like to party, two more rock books showed up for me this week. Both came from my good friend Mary at BookHounds. Mary’s passion for music is every bit as big as mine, only she gets to live it more than I do. Which is very sad for me.

But there are books! And books are what it’s all about.

First is Maria Semple’s This One is Mine, which I’ve been drooling over and lusting for. Mary had an extra, so it headed my way (inside of a fantastic package of stuff from the recent South by Southwest extravaganza).

Keeping it company was a copy of Jim Lindberg’s Punk Rock Dad. I hadn’t even HEARD of this book until Mary asked if I’d read it. Of course, it’s a memoir, so that explains some of the radio silence, but… hell yeah, I’m gonna sit down with this puppy and devour!

While you’re waiting for me to read and review these books here at Rocks ‘n Reads, be sure to stop in at The Story Siren and The Printed Page for more Mailbox Mondays and In My Mailbox posts. It’s fun to see the variety of what everyone’s reading; it really reminds you that these days, there are books for every taste.

When I was contacted about joining a blog tour for David Grant’s Rock Stars: The Rise, fall, and rise of 80′s glam frontmen into pop culture, I figured I couldn’t say no. Talk about right up my alley!

While the book wasn’t everything I’d hoped, chatting with Mr. Grant certainly was. Here’s how it went:

1. What was it that prompted you to break out from blogging and put Rock Stars together? That one special thing that made you say, “All right, I’m doing it and here goes!”

For the past couple years I have been writing a weekly column for MetalUnderground.com called “The Rockstar Ramblings”. What I was finding was how the bands from the eighties and individually, the lead singers, are more in the news today versus then. There are biographies on some of the bands, and a few that address the genre of music, but none of these books looked specifically at the front men of the heavy metal glam era. In my mind I pictured a visual aspect to the book to compliment the tongue-and-cheek style of my writing. This was accomplished by Joel Gwidt (Illustrator), who did an exceptional job drawing sketches and capturing each vocalist in their prime.

The mini-biographies, injected with humor wrote themselves. For me it was a perfect break from writing fiction. The research, that included many hours of watching old videos, was an interesting way to capture a time when matching your lip stick shade to your bandana color was just as (or more) important than the song itself.

2. You pick out some of the most influential men from the ’80s and pre-Nirvana ’90s. Is there anyone you realized you forgot?

There had to be a point where I just said no more. This is one of the reasons I put the “criteria” in the first section. You can make an argument that Marq Torien (Bulletboys), Taime Downe (Faster Pussycat), Carl Snare (Firehouse), and others could be included. I agree, they COULD have been added, but the specific group (28 in all) were selected based on their place in main stream pop culture as well as what they “brought” to the eighties.

Another suspicious inclusion included Josh Todd (Buckcherry), not because they were around in the eighties, but that they gladly carried the eighties torch through the nineties. Given this, Velvet Revolver could have been included given their Guns N Roses roots, but then do you include Scott Weiland? If so, you open the door to Stone Temple Pilots, the bands of the nineties, and pure madness.

In the end I am okay with my selections, after all, you always want to leave room for a sequel: “Obscure Rock Stars: The rise, fall, and rise of the unknown lead singers of the eighties.”

One thing is for sure, I will never include the band Europe. No band should be named after a continent. I have very strict beliefs in this area.

3. At the end, you speak of the music being the most fun and a great escape from our lives. Is this what makes the music (and the frontmen and women) every bit as relevant today as they were in the party-on ’80s?

Rock music often reflects the state of society and we are seeing more fans flock back to the feel good music of the eighties, a time of recession that in some ways mirrors our current settings. Popping up in reality television, reunion tours, and everything pop culture, eighties hair bands are as relevant as ever. People need an escape, and this music is exactly that, an escape. Most of us will never be in the convertible limo with a hot tub, waving a bottle of champagne while cruising down S. Las Vegas Boulevard, BUT for five minutes we can go there. For the listener, a fantasy celebration of over indulgence is like a good piece of fiction, or bad (read: reality) television.

4. Pick ONE of the stars you profiled. Who would join you for a rock star’s 2PM breakfast buffet at Denny’s (eager groupies focused on you as much as your companion, and held safely away by big, burly security dudes)?

Picture this: Your eyes are blurred from a night of partying, you hear music, but that’s just the lingering effect of the loud guitars from the evening. Several plates of stacked pancakes sit in front of you. Across the table sits David Lee Roth. He is yelling out “More flapjacks!” At multiple points in this early morning he is standing on the booth (you always go for the booth at Denny’s) and the groupies are in constant movement, often coming in and out of the revolving bathroom door to “powder their noses”. Our waitress continues bringing plates of pancakes. There are bottles of Heineken beer covering the open spaces on the table (in between the plates of pancakes). The waitress stops for a moment, David Lee Roth screams, “More flapjacks!”

5. And finally, the traditional West of Mars question: What ONE SONG makes you think of your book? Yep, only one.

“Nuthin’ But a Good Time”, Poison

For better or worse you have a band at the height of the glam eighties singing a song about partying. The video (often more important than the actual song) celebrates life and has more costume changes than a Broadway show. In the middle of song you even have Bret Michaels offering a toast “To all of us breaking our backs every day, if wanting a good life is such a crime, Lord then put me away! Here’s to ya!” An argument can also be made that this is the point that opened up the flood gates for the more “poser” type bands that ultimately led to a saturation of hair bands. Of course, that is if you believe Poison was not one of these bands to begin with…

There ya go. If you’re into the fun of 80s hair music, Mr. Grant and I have two copies of Rock Stars to share with you (US and Canada only). Leave a comment here with your e-mail and next Thursday, the 29th, I’ll pick the winners.

Well, two-fer this week refers to the number of books I got in the mail. The books didn’t even come from the same person, or from the same source — one’s a BookCrossing trade and one came from PaperbackSwap.com.

Skeletons at the Feast arrived so that I can read it with my book club. At some point in the distant future… The only other Bohjalian book I’ve read was, of course, Midwives. I loved it. I don’t know why I haven’t followed this author more closely.

My other book this week was a thank-you from a fellow BookCrosser. I sent her a book, she found this on my wishlist… life is good.

Carrie Adams’ The Godmother had been on my wishlist for quite some time. I hope I like this, as her The Stepmother is also on my wishlist. Unfortunately, this has to go hold up the TBR mountain range for the time being…

One day I shall be caught up. In the meantime, why not join me in visiting the others who’ve dropped in at The Printed Page and The Story Siren with reports of their own Mailbox Monday/In the Mailbox surprises.

I’d heard good things about Cecil Castellucci’s Beige, so I attempted extra lengths to get my hands on it. A copy popped up at Paperbackswap.com before I could get to a bookstore and wouldn’t you know, but it’s the latest in a year-long epidemic of books showing up with water stains (despite my clear request that these sorts of books NOT be sent my way. Sigh).

Still, a little water will only prevent me from re-listing the book at PaperBackSwap. It won’t prevent me from reading it… with a canister of albuterol handy. Water damage invites mold into a book, people!

It was hard to put Beige on the Read Soon pile (as opposed to the ToBeRead mountain range in my office). It didn’t linger long, a scant two months. Maybe two and a half.

In the end, I have to say I was disappointed with Beige. It’s not that it’s not a good book. It is. It’s not that you can’t feel the music in these pages. You can.

It’s that it reminds me so much of one of my all-time favorite books, Fat Kid Rules the Earth, that Beige seems like a derivative female version of the same story. Oh, there are differences: Katy comes to LA, expecting to spend two weeks with her father the legendary punk rocker. She meets a cast of characters who should have been vibrant and wonderful, but didn’t live and breathe as much as I’d have liked them to. I left this book wanting to know more about Garth. More about Trixie, and her relationship to The Rat. And I left it hoping that Lake would become less of the cliche she is in these pages. Leo, too. Talk about the perfect jock who’s into one-night stands before he loses his virginity.

Still, if you either can’t draw the comparison with Fat Kid or if you don’t want to, the way Castellucci draws the music for the reader is well done. As Katy begins to understand it, so do we. It’s a slow surrender, a slow realization of what music is and how it operates. And why it’s so important to so many of us.

I loved, too, the idea of the pool as the gathering place. In fact, I wish the final group scene had been set down at the pool. It became a strong metaphor for Katy’s transformation. But not just Katy’s. Her friends, such as they are, transform also, as the best characters in the best books do. Lake grows. Garth changes, although he’s still too much an enigma. I want more Garth! (I can easily see him holding court in his own book, in fact.)

In a switch from most plots aimed at kids and teens, I honestly thought there was one adult who stole the show: The Rat. Man, the visual I drew of him was of Tommy Lee, all skinny arms and legs and tattoos. But he’s also a man struggling with a past that continues to stalk him, a past that he built his legacy on. It can stalk him all it wants; he’s going to continue to find ways to work it. His band wasn’t a flash-in-the-pan. They’re coming back.

And still, The Rat bangs his drums to deal with his addiction cravings. He bangs his drums because he doesn’t get his own daughter. He wants, he needs, he can’t wash his dishes.

Here is one point where Castellucci doesn’t sink into the cliche: Katy doesn’t clean up The Rat’s apartment. She finds a way to dwell in the filth — and eventually, it stops bothering her. Maybe she even grows comfortable in it.

Fat Kid definitely ruined this book for me. The two are very similar; there’s no doubt about it. Overall, I think the themes of acceptance within an often ill-regarded subculture were better done by KL Going. But there’s plenty going on within Beige to recommend it, also. This is one of those books that could spin off sequels and series entries — although part of its magic is that it’s complete as is. We close the cover and wonder what’s ahead for these people. And we hope it’s all good.

One last note: Yep, I recommend this book, despite finding it falls short. I’ve been talking about it since I finished it, I’ve been thinking about it. Above all else, that is what sets the great books apart.

Yep, it was a light week for the old PO Box. Only one book showed up, but at least it showed up in duplicate (keep your eyes open for the review/interview/give that’ll be happening).

The Last River Child, written by Lori Ann Bloomfield, came to me thanks to the author herself. She saw a post I’d made at Win a Book about it and we started chatting and … as often happens… An author connected with a reader and now I’m off to sit and read…

As always, stop by The Printed Page and The Story Siren for Mailbox Monday and In my Mailbox, respectively.

When I finished reading Joe Meno’s Hairstyles of the Damned, I had two thoughts. First was that this book belongs on my list of rock and roll fiction. The mix tapes, the way these characters connect to music and allow it to define their identity make this a slam-dunk to be included on the list.

My other thought wasn’t quite so charitable. You see, I recently read The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington, and these two books were quite similar. The themes of young boys in puberty, beginning to navigate the mine field that is girls, alienation from the parents (or was that in Snow Angels?)… Even Booklist, the venerated book review source, said, “This is worthy if familiar stuff.”
That sums it up, I think.

Except Hairstyles did something the other two I just mentioned failed to: evoke a strong sense of nostalgia. The afore-mentioned Snow Angels was even set near West of Mars. You’d think that would awaken some feelings.

Not like Hairstyles did. Even though I’m a bit older than these characters, I still smiled at the haircut Brian quested after. I recognized the mosh pits of old. The lazy, languid afternoons, hanging out on the hood of a car. This was my life, to a degree. Not so much that I saw myself exactly, but enough that I was right there all over again. Those college years had been good to me. They were again as I read.

One thing Hairstyles had that Peter Paddington lacked that truly needs to be mentioned is the way in which we got to watch Brian change. He made progress in life. He lost some of his awkwardness, especially with the girls. Meno wasn’t afraid to let this character grow and change and be someone else at the end of the book. As a result, at times, you can’t help but root for Brian when things are going well. You can’t help but groan when he’s a lunkhead. But you don’t give up on him; Brian’s a survivor. You can tell that early on.

I wish I’d read this before Peter Paddington. I’d have done nothing but rave about it. But like my experience with Cecil Castellucci’s Beige, this one suffers from the shame of coming in second.

Pick it up. Tell me what you think.

I wasn’t going to include Searching for Tina Turner, the debut novel from Jacqueline E. Luckett, in my list of rock and roll fiction. It’s not about a rocker. Not really. But it belongs on my list, all right.

In this tale of a woman searching to find herself once her kids are grown and she’s become disenchanted with always sublimating herself for her husband, it’s all about Tina, baby, and the lessons our main character, Lena, learns from the rock icon. These pages vibrate with Tina’s music — her lyrics, in particular.

There is strength in those famous words, there’s no denying that. As Lena runs around France, finds herself, almost repeats the mistakes she made the first time around, and eventually connects with her own strength, I found myself not only rooting for her but remembering who I am, too.

SFTT is one of those books that made me angry, grossed me out (when she chased all over like a groupie. It was SO beneath Lena), made me cry, and made me laugh out loud. And the ending? Absolutely perfect.

Okay, maybe parts of the book — and the ending — were a bit too pat. So what? The book needed it. Lena needed it. We, the reader, needed it.

Know what else I need now? A copy of I, Tina. There’s much to be learned from Tina’s tale, methinks.

As for Ms. Luckett, bring on the next one, baby. She’s a strong new voice who transcends skin color (I didn’t even realize the heroine was African American until I saw the “Essence Book Club” badge on the cover.) and speaks to all of us women.

Except… maybe not Tina Turner. She’s been there, done this. Survived it. So does Lena.

And so will we.

I bet many of you didn’t know what Rocks and Reads was all about, did you? This is where I’m a bit more of a traditional book blogger. This space is also available if you need an extra place to hang a post or two.

At this rate, I’m going to start going to the PO Box once a week instead of twice.

Yep, it all arrived by Thursday’s box check. Only two this week, which is super fine with me. After all, I’m trying to lessen the number of books here in the house, waiting to be read.

Both were Random Acts of BookCrossing Kindness. And you thought BookCrossing was only leaving books in public places for others to find. HA! Not even close.

First was The Sea, written by John Banville. It was a pleasure to remove this from my various wishlists. I’m eager to read it. It’ll have to wait its turn.

Not so for Corn Flakes with John Lennon, written by Robert Hilburn. It’s another rock and roll book, and my friends Dana and Lauren were gracious enough to surprise me with their review copy. I’m adding this to the stack behind my desk, where my series and my rock books go. Hopefully it won’t languish long… but don’t I say that about everything?

That’s it. What’d YOU get?

Don’t forget to report in at The Printed Page and The Story Siren, where lots of people share what goodies were in their own boxes. It’s a dangerous time to surf; if your wishlist doesn’t grow by leaps and bounds… you’re a better person than I.