C+
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Romance
Lick by Kylie Scott is a New Adult for anyone who’s had a crush on a musician. Now, back when I was a youngster I had posters of the Backstreet Boys lining my bedroom walls. I wrote what was, although I didn’t know it, fan fiction in a notebook that, please Jesus, has since been destroyed in the fiery bowels of hell. My person crush was on Kevin, the oldest member of the group, who didn’t sing so much as say things like “Baby, I love how you looked in homeroom today” before the beginning of songs, despite the fact that he was, I believe, 30 at the time.
So yeah, I get the whole popstar/rockstar crush thing. I think everyone does to some extent.
Scott does a good job of fleshing this fantasy out into a New Adult novel, although the first person perspective left me wondering at what the hero was thinking a good portion of the time and the ending was a little wobbly.
Evelyn Thomas wakes up from her 21st birthday party in Vegas in bed with a stranger. This is bound to be disconcerting, but she also happens to be married to that stranger—because Vegas is a place where good decisions are made, people. To add to the “WTF happened last night” and the “OMG I’m going to throw up,” that stranger is David Ferris, the hot, tattooed song-writer and member of the band Stage Dive.
Evelyn, who is a fan of country music, has no idea who David is. Now, I’ve seen this a lot in New Adults and contemporaries that feature a famous hero. The heroine is the only person on earth who has no fucking clue who the hero is. To Scott’s credit, she does not employ the teeth-grinding tactic of making the heroine only interested in tea, classical literature or classical music. Any time a New Adult heroine is a tea-drinking, Bronte-loving special snowflake, I take a shot.
I understand why Evelyn’s ignorance is useful—you get to have these two characters develop a relationship without any preconceptions on the heroine’s part, but I always find it really hard to believe that if the hero is that famous, the heroine doesn’t recognize him. Yeah, she might not be a fan of his style of music, but she’s bound to see him on the tabloids that line the cash registers at grocery store right? Or hear about him from friends? Or see him on SNL?
Okay, to be fair, David is not the lead singer and therefore most famous person in the band. I know Adam Levine, but I couldn’t name anyone else in Maroon 5. Also, Evelyn’s roommate, Lauren, is a huge Stage Dive fan so there is a moment of recognition eventually.
So anyway, Evelyn is horrified that’s she’s married to this dude she does not know. David seems less than happy with her response to their nuptials. The press descends on them and Evelyn leaves Portland, where she’s going to college, to go to LA and get their marriage annulled, Britney-style.
Evelyn feels grossly out of place in David’s world. It doesn’t help that he’s surrounded by what she describes as a “colony of douches.” HA. David largely ignores her, his bandmate and brother, Jimmy, skeeves on her, and his lawyers treat her like a gold digging whore. To add insult to injury pictures of her getting a tattoo on her ass during their Vegas whirlwind romance have surfaced on the internet, and she’s humiliated.
Evelyn is routinely described as being self-conscious about her weight. The people around David imply that she’s not pretty enough for him (assholes). I’m never sure how I feel about this in books. I think everyone is self-conscious about their body to an extent, and I certainly was more so at 21 then now. Still, I kind of like it when the heroine is all “Fuck you,” and just owns her body versus worries about it.
Anyway, amid all this craziness Evelyn is like “Screw you, Colony of Douches” (which would be an excellent band name), and takes off without signing the divorce/annulment papers. Eventually David pulls his head out of his ass and takes her to his house in Monterrey for some alone time to figure things out.
When David and Evelyn are away from the media circus, the lawyers, the band, they get to relate to each other as real people. Evelyn was black-out drunk the night of her birthday—she has very limited memories of what happened. David, however, remembers everything. Even though this is a first person POV book, it starts becoming apparent that David didn’t marry Evelyn because of alcohol but because he really, really liked her.
This is where Lick stutters a little bit. I really needed David’s POV to buy a lot of this. He’s obviously hurt that Evelyn didn’t take their one night courtship seriously and he did, but because HE NEVER USES HIS WORDS I’m inferring all this.
He’s also hurt that Evelyn doesn’t remember anything. DUDE. She was black-out drunk. You were there. You didn’t pick up on that? I’m sorry, but “You were so intoxicated you don’t remember us meeting for the first time ever and then getting married and now I’m hurt” thing is kind of creepy.
If I had David’s point of view, he would have likely been much more sympathetic and felt less emo and petulant. David also didn’t articulate at any point what he was actually feeling. I can’t blame him for the latter though. Romance heroes don’t discuss their feels and he’s Been Hurt In The Past so now he can’t talk about it. Unless he writes it down in a song and shares it with millions of people, that is. Oh, romance heroes, you’re such goobers.
David has been in a funk song-writing wise, and as he and Evelyn spend the week together, they begin to recognize the chemistry between them that drew them together in Vegas, and David’s creative juices start flowing. After some sexytimes and some pillow talk they decide to stay married and see what happens. David starts writing new songs. They have amazing sex. Evelyn feels happy and in love. They make pizza with broccoli on it.
PIZZA WITH BROCCOLI ON IT?!
No. No. You go to your room, Evelyn, and think about what you’ve done.
I know it’s only been a week, but celebrities are known for short courtships, so okay, I’ll buy them falling in love and deciding to stay together.
Things go south when they return to LA though. Something Very Bad happens that drives Evelyn from David and makes her start to think that he can only be the man she’s falling in love with when he’s away from his celebrity circle.
I liked Lick. It had some technical problems relating to the conflict at the end and the fact that without his point of view, David wasn’t always the most sympathetic. Evelyn has a strong voice though, she’s a relatable heroine, and the idea of being woo’d by a celebrity is pretty appealing.
I should also mention that I listened to this book on audio. The narrator, Andi Arndt, knocked it out of the park. The first person POV really lends itself to an audio version. After listening to Lick, I downloaded the sequel, Play immediately to Audible.
This book made me relive my Backstreet Boys days—ah the nineties—with some amusement. It also made me Google pictures of shirtless Adam Levine. That was enough to put a smile on my face, and I have hopes for the rest of the Stage Dive series.
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Shirtless Adam Levine is also a good name for a band.
>>>Yeah, she might not be a fan of his style of music, but she’s bound to see him on the tabloids that line the cash registers at grocery store right? Or hear about him from friends? Or see him on SNL?
Maybe she doesn’t look at tabloids or watch SNL. You don’t have to be a special snowflake for that. (But then, what do I know, I drink tea…)
>>>I’m sorry, but “You were so intoxicated you don’t remember us meeting for the first time ever and then getting married and now I’m hurt” thing is kind of creepy.
I’d say marrying someone who’s “black-out drunk” (whether you have sex with them afterwards or not) is beyond just “kind of creepy”.
I was once served pizza topped with cooked cauliflower and cabbage. And no cheese.
Granted, this was in a small town in India, but yeah… compared to that, pizza with broccoli doesn’t seem so bad. Especially if there was cheese and pepperoni and all the other good stuff.
Also, I don’t look at tabloids and I don’t have a TV, so I’m very out of touch with who’s who in music and TV. But like Redcrow, I drink tea.
I think the plausibility of her not knowing who he was at all depends on the fame level. You don’t have to spend all your time glued to the TV or tabloids to know who, say, Justin Bieber is, even if you only know him vaguely as “that popstar guy”. I don’t watch a lot of TV or read tabloids (or drink tea), but if you rattle off names of some of the really big stars (the people who have achieved worldwide status), I would at least know OF them, even if I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup or tell you any of the songs they played.
Oh, I drink tea too! I’m not harshing on the tea.
There’s a trend in NA where the heroine only listens to “serious” music or reads classic literature because she’s DIFFERENT (ie better) than other girls. And she always drinks tea.
I can’t wait to read your review of Play.
Ooof, okay the blackout thing is really bad to me because a girl I knew once got blackout and during that time someone hooked up with her and she had absolutely no recollection of the entire event. She only found out months later and said it was incredibly horrifying and violating.
So yeah, this is really not okay to me as a plot device, and I have a hard time believing that he didn’t notice if she was drunk out of her mind.
Really great review though.
She’s from Portland? Maybe she’s trying to recreate the McMenamin’s Green with Envy pizza, which is the best goddamn vegetarian pizza you’ll ever eat. Pesto, feta, zucchini, spinach, mozzarella, and yes, broccoli. I might actually have to get one for dinner tonight.
As a fan of both rock music and rock-themed romances (and somebody who married a rock musician), I would be interested in this, but I just can’t with 21-year-old heroines and surprise Vegas marriages. Nope.
Off tangent, but also with a rock star hero, is Come Dancing by Leslie Wells which was 100% excellent. British rock star, set in 1981, amazing strong sense of place, heroine a publisher’s assistant working to move forward in her career. I was dismayed to find this is the author’s only work.
I have to confess that I have read the other books (2) in this series. I skipped this one based on the reviews and didn’t have any trouble starting with the second book even though I’m hesitant to skip around like that. I was really glad I did. The second (especially) and third book were very very good and the writing just got better. I’ll definitely get the book on the last band member when it comes out. I’m quite stingy with my book budget dollars and with a TBR of about 100 books I’ve become more concise with my purchases to cut back some of the backlog. Don’t let this one discourage you from the whole series.
I’ve had white pizza with broccoli on it, but I prefer spinach.
Even better, though? Ditch the veggies, add some ricotta, provolone, monterey jack, and parmesan, and make a 5-cheese pizza. (Definitely not diet friendly… or artery friendly.)
(I think I need to go eat dinner now…)
Stick with the series! She makes some great improvements with each one, but Play is definitely my favorite (Mal is the best).
For rock star romances, I must highly recommend “American Love Songs” by Ashlyn Kane. So good. I’ve read it a half-dozen times.
I’m a tea drinker and I don’t read “real” literature. I also don’t know who Maroon 5 is, I’m guessing the boy band of the decade? I’ll also need to google Adam Levine as I don’t know who he is. However, I’m also in my 40’s and have a limited selection of music genre’s I listen to which include Irish, Swing, and Christian. I would find it harder to believe a 21 year-old college student doesn’t know who a popular rock star is. It would be much easier to believe she married a top country singer and didn’t know him – or irish or swing or Christian for that matter. Although, I’d like to believe a Christian singer wouldn’t married a black-out drunk woman until after she sobered up, they had more time together and then soberly decided to get married. Different sub-genre that story.
I’m on the bandwagon that says marrying a woman who is so drunk, she’ll not remember a thing, is creepy.
Lick wasn’t bad, I must admit, however that whole ‘so drunk you don’t remember A Thing’ thing really grated on my nerves. Unless something else got popped into her drink at some point – but that wasn’t addressed or even questioned. It didn’t cross her mind after waking up with zero memories. It sure as hell would have crossed mine! Despite the fact she is a 21 year old, fairly straightlaced and not-so-worldly type – no one, and I do mean no one I’ve ever met has been so drunk that they do not remember a single thing from the night previous. Especially not when confronted with the evidence of it first thing in the morning. Which usually prompts the questions of who is he, where am I, why am I wearing a policeman’s hat???? And how was she able to function? If she is so drunk she blacks out – how was she even able to make it through the marriage ceremony. If he has to prop her up for the celebrant aren’t some questions asked? Also, a question – aren’t there rules for tattooing people? I thought you weren’t legally able to if the person is obviously intoxicated or incapacitated. Or are the rules different in the States?
Having said that, it was not too bad a read – I especially liked the tongue lashing she gave the smarmy lawyers in the office. I’d like to see where the rest of the series goes and I’m looking forward to Play.
I’ve read all the books in the series and actually enjoyed them far more than most other NAs. Yes, you have to suspend belief in some circumstances, but to me that’s part of reading fiction and certainly not unique to this story. Lead is my favourite in the series, but I do wish the editing was better. The whole timing, instalove thing improves with each book.
Although Lick wasn’t my fav, I still liked it a lot and there were some great lines:
Sigh…
I really enjoyed this book despite the problems you point out in your review. It has a certain spark to it that makes it better than the sum of its parts (to me at least) if that makes any sense. I have yet to read a Kylie Scott book I haven’t enjoyed though.
I especially liked her zombie-apocalypse books (“Flesh” and “Skin”).
Like others I do think the 2nd and 3rd books in this series are better than “Lick”, but I wouldn’t have even read them if I hadn’t found this one so appealing.
Other rock star romances I would recommend include: “Louder Than Love” by Jessica Topper (washed up ‘80s rocker meets widowed librarian), The Lonely Kings series by Ava Lore because she just seems to get the rock and roll lifestyle, and I loved Lauren Dane’s latest “The Best Kind of Trouble”.
Lick is just Ok, but Play is really good! Mal is hilarious, and it was refreshing to have such a playful male lead. Please note I shame inhaled all three of the available books in this series in 4 days. (my kids felt woefully neglected).
These are stunning involvement images. It just goes to demonstrate that you don’t need sunlight to get excellent images.
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First off full disclosure. I have to admit I really like the rock star falls for average girl trope! And yes I really enjoyed this book despite the problems you point out. I agree about the whole blackout drunk thing being weird – I kind of thought of it as a convenient plot device – like amnesia – though not really believable for the reasons everyone has pointed out I just went with it. Mainly because I really like the author’s voice – and the character voice of Evelyn since it’s told from her point of view. She may be young but she’s not an idiot – she really regrets her night of drinking and won’t be pushed around by the members of the rock star’s entourage.
And I also found Mal hilarious, so can’t wait to read his book next.