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Rock Star by Roslyn Hardy Holcomb

Rock Star by Roslyn Hardy Holcomb Grade: B

When it came time to grade this book, I wavered a lot. There were things I loved about it. There were also things that worked my last nerve. I’ll address both presently. In the end, it averaged to a solid “B” because she managed to make me cry once before the story was done. Rock Star offers a better than average showing from a freshman author, so I’ll be watching her.

What worked for me:

Callie. I loved Callie. She’s strong and smart, funny, and she totally has her shit together. This is a heroine with a game plan and knows what she wants out of life. It was refreshing to find a heroine who’s not looking for a man to complete her. Books and So Forth, the name of her store, is the love of her life, and she hasn’t had time to mess around with men since she hit the ground running out of college and started her own business.

Rock Star is set in Maple Fork, Alabama, and Ms. Holcomb writes with authority about living in a small Southern town. The setting pops, and is populated with a charming secondary cast. Granny rocked my world. I laughed out loud more than once at the wise but funny homilies she dispensed toward the end of the book. Likewise, I enjoyed Callie’s mom, who is afflicted with “little woman” syndrome. This means she’s no bigger than a minute but somehow manages to boss everybody in a mile radius. Her father comes down hard on Callie for dating a white man. At first, as a white reader, this bothered me some, but as the book went on, I came to see it more as a father simply trying to protect his daughter. It makes me sad that we live in a world where color matters, but maybe our kids will live in a world where it doesn’t.

I also liked the way Ms. Holcomb treated family and friendships in Rock Star. So many romances read like the hero and heroine exist in a vacuum — you never see anybody else. Ms. Holcomb understands that two people in love also interact with other people in their lives, and that matters. It adds depth to the story. It can be tricky to do this without letting your zany supporting characters steal the show, but the author worked this just fine.

The story definitely has a fantasy feel to it, answering the question of “what would happen if Trent Reznor fell in love with a black girl from Alabama?” [Ed. Note: *sigh* What if he fell in love with a little brown girl from San Diego?] Once you get swept into the dreamy wonder of it, it’s all good. I definitely enjoyed the fairy tale flavor of it. Bryan feels more like a “dream” man than a real man in some regards, but it didn’t detract from the book.

The conflict in the story felt real at least, not manufactured. When Callie questions whether she can handle being with a rock star all the time, that’s a valid concern in my mind. She’s not being stupid or overly careful. It’s a big change she’s considering allowing into her life for all time, and Callie isn’t a character who does things on impulse.

What didn’t work for me:

Head-hopping. There was mega head-hopping throughout, and it was tough going the first part of the book. The chapters don’t stay in one person’s point of view. Sometimes you get heroine, hero, and the heroine’s dad, all without rhyme or reason. There’s no pattern to it that I can detect either. Rock Star is definitely a book that improves as you read on, but the first hundred pages or so are something of a chore. In the course of the book, we get glimpses into the point of view of the hero, heroine, both Callie’s parents, some of Bryan’s bandmates, and the list goes on. If a person is in a scene, we get thoughts from their point of view, observations that could only be known in that point of view, or via a sudden, random switch to third person omniscient. This could’ve used some tighter editing, honestly, but this is a typical “new author” mistake, and Ms. Holcomb has a really nice voice, fun, but downhome and earthy, very readable, so I’m hopeful this POV problem will change in subsequent books.

In the first part of Rock Star, I noticed a major case of the author saying “this happened” — instead of actually writing the scene in the moment, she summarizes. I think perhaps Ms. Holcomb was so eager to get to the juicy stuff, she rushed through the beginning stages of the relationship because she fast forwards through two months of Callie and Bryan hanging out together and she encapsulates what all went down in two or three pages. That didn’t work for me. I wanted to see those scenes written in present tense. I wanted to see Callie and Bryan becoming close, not simply be told that now they are. I wanted to see Callie establishing herself as his rock with his world crashing down around him. I felt like she wasted word count, dragging out the conflict at the end, where it should have been devoted to building their relationship in the beginning. Still, overall, this was an enjoyable read, and I’ll definitely check out Ms. Holcomb’s next book.

Annie Dean

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Please buy Ms. Hardy Holcomb’s book here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 8:38 am and is filed under Grade: B, Romance: Contempo, Reviews by Annie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

11 Responses to “Rock Star by Roslyn Hardy Holcomb”

  1. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 9:12 am
    1

    Oh and for those who are wondering, I’ll include the scene that made me cry. It’s a spoiler, though, so I’ll devise a cunning plan. A plan so cunning I could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. (Highlight to see the spoiler.)

    When Bryan serenades Callie on national TV and says “I love you, Callie” at the end of the song he wrote especially for her, I got all misty.

    Yeah, I know. I’m a soft touch.

  2. bam
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 9:15 am
    2
    Author Comment

    Man… that’s always been a fantasy of mine. You know, like with Trent Reznor. *sniff*

  3. dl
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 10:32 am
    3

    From my observations, the race thing varies somewhat by region & generation. I may read Rock Star for the research value. I was raised in the Pacific Northwest where tolerance is the norm…I’ve been told it’s not unusual for mixed race married couples to move here for acceptance…mixed marriages rarely rate more than a second glance, if that. But, a college friend married a Southern boy…after visiting family (20 yrs ago), she was suprised at the amount of open racism, and declared the cooking is fabulous but their children would NEVER be raised south of the Mason-Dixon line. Our grandparents generation often appear bigoted in a “I was raised that way, nothing personal” way. Kids these days don’t seem to notice much, and any bigotry seems earned in a “that gang or click hurt me or is dangerous” way.

    As a parent to 3 teens, we’ve already had this conversation…based on my observations of married friends and relatives in same and mixed race relationships. Moving, divorce, death in the family, etc., are considered to be lifelong stress factors. The more differences in the relationship, the harder it’s going to be, and the greater the chance for emotional trauma, seperation, and failure. Therefore, cultural, social, economical, racial, religeous, recreational, and other differences WILL add up. If a couple shares interests, hobbies, similar faith, cultural and economical backgrounds…then (depending on where you live) race need not be the staw that breaks the camels back. If there are major differences in too many of these areas; any chance for success of the relationship lowers enormously…and parents try to guide our children to success wherever possible.

  4. Barbara B.
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 11:03 am
    4

    “A plan so cunning I could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.” How Black Adderish!

    Great review and great explanation of what head hopping means. I read that phrase a lot and was never quite sure I knew what it meant.

    I wish this book was in ebook form or even at a bookstore. I hate ordering books online. Sometimes I never get them.

  5. Roslyn
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 11:17 am
    5

    Barbara, if you don’t mind reading an ARC I’ll be happy to send it to you for free. Thanks for the review Ann(ie), I’m working on the head-hopping, I promise.

  6. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
    6

    Awesome, Roslyn! I can’t wait to read the next one. You have a really engaging authorial voice.

  7. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
    7

    Oh, and big props to Barbara B. for ID-ing the quote. I love me some Black Adder.

    Glad you liked the review. :)

  8. L.E. Bryce
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
    8

    Things to note: if you manage to make Annie cry at least once before the end, you’re doing good.

  9. kate r
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
    9

    This is one book I’m planning to read because I met the author online. She and I got into it (sort of) over at Karen’s and I ended up not exactly agreeing with her but deciding I like her.

    Also I like the storyline. AND I love stories that go pppppppffffftttth to the standard category conventions (”Thou Shalt Never have Rock Star Heroes”)

  10. Devon
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
    10

    Great review. I agreed with everything you said. The beginning was slow, then it really picked up. I knew she had me when I got choked up (with tears) at the same scene you mentioned. And those type of scenes usually make me gag. I can’t stand ‘em, so props to Roslyn. Bryan was a fantasy man, but then I have rock star fantasies. And Callie was a good heroine (and consistent) which I liked.

  11. Ann(ie)
    Posted: Apr 19th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
    11

    Something I forgot to mention… the book doesn’t ONLY take place in Maple Fork. They go from Venice Beach to Canada in the course of the novel, and Ms. Holcomb owns each scene change. She wrote each changing location with real knowledge, eloquence and authority. I felt like she’d been there, watching the people and mentally logging what she’d seen.

    In romance novels, often the sense of place and setting takes a back seat to the characters. Not quite a “white room” thing but it’s more anemic and sketched in. This was not the case with Rock Star at all. Ms. Holcomb has a vibrant command of the ability to plunk a reader right in the middle of what’s going on.

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