Shan is young, beautiful, talented, and addicted to heroin in Rock Angel, a novel that follows her meteoric rise to guitar goddess stardom in the 90’s. She is discovered in New York by a handsome, arrogant musical genius named Quinn, and sparks fly between them when he hires her as lead guitarist of his band. Although Quinn is accustomed to bedding a different groupie every night, he can’t ignore his deepening feelings for his new band mate. From gritty Greenwich Village clubs to L.A.’s Troubadour; gigging and touring the country to the cover of Rolling Stone, Rock Angel is infused with the passionate music and intense sexual chemistry of Shan and Quinn. Shan must work out her personal demons and learn to trust Quinn enough to love him, but still remain true to the music that has always been her salvation.
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I'm going to cut straight to the point with this one. Rock Angel is one of the best books centered around music that I have read in a long fucking time. It's not without it's flaws, but even then I was hooked to every moment. It hit those cords that anyone who lived and loved the music of the time would understand. Though the music played a huge part into making this book, it was Shan, and in turn her relationship with Quinn (think Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore, but with a happier ending), that made this something special.
I don't want to do a full review this far out from the release date in September, so I'm going to keep this (relatively) vague.
The hardest hitting point with this book is Shan's heroin addiction. Anyone who even paid even the slightest attention to music in the 90s knows how much it was a part of the music scene. How many people it took and lives it ruined. Shan's addiction throughout the book was handled in such a way that this was constantly on your mind. You could feel her struggles with it on every page. You ached with her she tried to get clean..and when she relapsed again. And you respected her because even despite this struggle, she never stopped trying. Addiction is a bitch to kick and nothing in this book made you think otherwise. I respected that more than anything else.
Shan's addiction made have been the hardest hitting point in this, but the relationship between Shan and Quinn was the most impactful. You walked with them through their first meeting, falling in love, their troubles (and there was a lot of them) and back again. Everything was laid bare through the music they wrote together and their everyday interaction. Nothing was ever easy for them and they fought for what they had, which in the end made everything a little sweeter.
Rock Angel is something special. Maybe it's just because the 90s had such a big impact on me, so a love story set in that time would mean even more to me. It wasn't just that though. It's angsty and hard-hitting, while also being poetic and beautiful. It makes you feel...to remember what it was like back then. I loved every sweet and painful moment.
So kudos to the author on this. I think she really nailed this debut novel. 4 out of 5 Stars.
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