Photo credits: flowers-2715798_1920 Edited by Vaishali Title: Dirty Like Me (A Dirty Rockstar Romance #1) Author: Jaine Diamond Genre/Themes: Contemporary/erotic rockstar romance, adult fiction, Publisher: DreamWarp Publishing Year of Publication: 2016 Version: E-book kindle app R E V I E W...'It wasn’t a love song, exactly, or a breakup song, or a make out song, but some kind of blood and gut and soul-fueled synthesis of all three. A kind of musical hate f*** wrapped in the sweetest love letter.’ ’This was heartbreak in slow motion.’ ‘Dirty Like Me’ takes that fanciful scenario that gives the average girl fantastical hope by placing ‘ordinary’ Katie Bloom in the shoes that some girls could only dream of; in the arms and fanatic life of a famed rockstar…perhaps I should amend that; into the fake arms of a false romance. Let the showmance commence… ‘This fake relationship was starting to sound like a hell of a lot of fun.’ “No rest for the wicked?” “Welcome to the fast lane, babe.” Katie Bloom occupies the indecisive mould of someone looking to move headlong but reluctant enough to face any sort of likely heartache, both in life and in love - she’s been there, served the time and bears the marks of love lost. A skater who lives an unassuming, dormant life on the down road of low range confidence, creatively lost and dispiritedly mislaid in a routine that downplays her truest dreams and aspirations. The universe however, has plans for Katie. After almost two years of the slumberous everyday, and with the encouraging rallying of her friend, spins Katie from the run-of-the-mill to the momentously serendipitous. This way a rockstar comes… “This is a real opportunity. Do it for your art. And for your heart.” “I guess I kind of lost my mojo.” “Then we’ll just have to get it back.” Dirty is the band’s name, gritty soulful rock is their game. Lead guitarist, rock icon, heartthrob personality and all around hot blooded male, Jesse Mayes rules the spotlight along with every fanatic heart of his die hard fans. Troubled and passionately brazen, making music is a cathartic affair for Jesse, enough to write his troubles away. Jessie lets his music speak for him because he doesn’t know how to speak for himself. If you’re thinking humble, you'd be thinking wrong. Jesse Mayes is voracious, ravenous and an out of bounds outrageous mix of provocative energy and shameless suggestion, a sexy temptation that strips and rips at all seams. “You have no shame.” He pulled me closer. “Tell me, Katie Bloom. What do I have to be ashamed about?” ‘Cinnamon. Leather. Jesse Mayes. These were fast becoming my three favorite scents in the world.’ Jesse Mayes is made from the stuff of dirty dreams. A rock god to the core with a rock solid flagrant image of rocky pheromones that has every heart thawing for him. Katie Bloom is not immune to this either, but when she puts herself at the forefront of her own life and throws herself into the very foreign deep end, starring as Jesse Mayes’ leading lady in a heated music video, this cocksure musician understands what a girl who isn’t struck silly by him looks like…a lot like Katie Bloom it seems - and that is an interesting girl indeed. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s also not a saint.” “You planning on going to jail tonight, cherry pie?” “One never knows when hanging out with a rock star.” There it was again, that sexy, throaty laugh.’ With a spark that flames on sight, a biting fire that erupts on screen, then torches through the internet when Jesse’s video goes viral, he has to make Katie an offer she can’t possibly refuse, surely? Not only is this music video an impressive hit and the most watched of rocks’ best, but it puts simple Katie on the map, not a map she wants to be on, but with Jesse’s new single promising big things with a curious buzz about the new girl, prompts this lead guitarist to make Katie a deal: Big money to traffic a lie; be his fake girlfriend for 6 weeks on tour. Life changing money she can put towards her stalled dreams. “They don’t think anyone will care if I show up on tour with an ordinary girl,” he said. “And by ordinary, I mean not famous. But here’s the thing, Katie. I think they’re wrong about that. And for the record, I don’t think there’s an ordinary thing about you.” “Don’t live with regrets, Katie Bloom.” Katie doesn’t want to be swept up by an unfeasible phantasy, and that’s what Jesse is, untouchable, unreachable, unavailable, unassailable but by gosh is he impressionable. Katie is completely beyond familiarity in this collision of glamorous rockstars and music’s celebrated - surrounded by perfect faces, beautiful bodies and passionate voices. A windstorm of the bizarrely dreamlike has Katie riding breathlessly in a coma-like heat, corralled by the inebriating lure of Jesse Mayes and his zestful lifestyle. “You understand this isn’t Cinderella, right? The kingdom isn’t actually up for grabs.” “I’ve never had a girl do the Cinderella dash on me. Kind of made me feel like Prince Charming.” Where to start? There was so much to love, and though I never saw it coming, there was much that spun me for bother because I didn’t think I would rate this any lower than a four star. I had real, believable hopes for a 5 star so let’s talk a bit about why I lost some love. This book is definitely more sensualist and erotic than it is a love story, than it is a romance, because there is enough steam and smut made to last - I like both steam and smut, believe me, the characters wear it well and they share an amazing accessible chemistry, but it was too much, trembling on the side of ‘where is the story that I know is here, where is the emotional substance to these characters that I also know is here?' “The truth, Katie Bloom, is that in my experience the women I date usually want something from me I’m not prepared to give.” ‘I wanted to know what it took to have a man like Jesse Mayes. For real.’ That the main couple didn’t get together from the start? I loved this. A good build up goes a long way for me. Any book that gives you a reason to stay between the pages is one that holds the kind of private value that makes it worth reading, and that’s how I felt when I started reading. It was exciting and exhilarating, everything I love to read about in a romance. I had my first trip when we’re only 1 day into the tour at the 45% mark, and I wondered whether we’d get enough time for the actual romance to kick in… ‘My eyes were shut when she got into bed. I felt her warmth and smelled her cherry-vanilla smell. She laid her head on the pillow next to me and sighed. And even in the dark, in the ringing silence, I felt the distance.’ With lots of heated frolicking, the story felt like a repetition of the same thing; in fact, a fair mass of the story could have been chipped and chiselled down considerably to make room for more romance and emotional grit. The couple have sex for the first time at the 60% mark, and I thought, ok, a tad late, but maybe I’ll get something more form them. I like some substance to my books, and I really was relieved at the 80% mark when we do get a bit of much-needed grit - which I was so glad for. Still, it didn’t stop me from questioning whether 80% is too far in for that kind of substance. I loved the story wholly at and after this point, which made me mourn what should have been the meatier centre-most parts of the story which could have done more favours, not just for the story, but for Katie and Jesse’s love story. ‘It really didn’t matter what I painted anyway, or who, since no one ever saw it. But it mattered to me. In fact, it should’ve mattered more to me.’ ”Your work can be famous, but every little detail of your private life doesn’t have to be.” “Why? Why are you doing this?” “Because I believe in you." We don’t want to know that a hero is worth believing in when the story falls to the end. If a few things were hammered and chiselled in and out of place, if even a quarter of insubstantial content was cut, it would have been a ‘perfect’ read for me. Is it advantageous for a hero to only show some substance at the 80% mark? And the problem is that Jesse is worth believing in, he’s a great alpha character that puts a likable spin on the sordid rockstar trope, but the vast focus on sex leaves little space to see his value and depth until the near end. He’s not your typical rabid, hellion of a rockstar, he treats Katie as gentlemanly as a rockstar can get in this genre. “You choose who you are out there, Katie. Who you want to be for them. You give what you want to give.” “It’s time to move forward, sweetie.” When you love a story, like I did when I first started reading, you want to love everything about it, and when you don’t love everything about it it’s defeating. We can see flashes of something real, but it’s then heavily shadowed by the oppressively lustful. It’s hard to put faith by a romantic relationship when perpetual on page sexual hunger is not the same. For a love story to work you want to know it’s just as strong, just as believable outside the walls of any bedroom, and I did believe that, but only properly at the near end. Lust, desire and all the trimmings of sexual tension won’t be enough to effect emotional substance for any romance. I want to love a character, swoon for them, not dislike them for coming across as only a sex roller for a good portion of the story, and the lines with Jesse did glaze over this point. ‘In fact, Katie might’ve been the first woman to cross my path in years who wasn’t gunning for what she’d already decided I might be worth to her.’ “You had a spark, though, you and Jesse. Brody and I both saw it." With Jesse’s personal hopes hinging on this project and an unmarked incentive to see this album a success, a convincing romance to up sales and sell the socks off this faux showmance ropes Katie into a makeshift lie. Worried it will be a temporary string of fantasies come to life with the shattering inevitability that, in the end, all will never be well that doesn’t end well when Katie wants to be worth more than a weighty paypacket and the background noise of a showman. How can things end well when love was never a part of the deal? Not wanting to get swept up by the hectic fervour and fanatic pace of Jessie and his seductive lifestyle, Katie is drawn in by this rockstar’s potent aura and the breathless, crackling pace of a rock ‘n’ rollers world. ‘This girl was on recovery road from something that had scarred her deep, and going on this tour, trusting me, was a major leap of faith.’ “People call me a heartbreaker,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I don’t enjoy breaking hearts.” Jesse is not an open book - trace his pages yes, but you’ll never get written in enough to know his melody and when a seeker is mired in the ley of the lost she can’t find what’s trying to be sough with the certainty of one who has found themselves - and the gamble of love presents a chance to change both. When the decided threads of a showmance blend into the real ones of a swelling romance, rolling with rock’s finest, swilling drinks and guzzling overzealous, edgy music, has Katie Bloom in a delirious daze and Jesse deliriously distracted. With the burning temperament of a rocker’s passion lights up the stage for an overzealously racy, exciting, ecstatic and chemistry-laden story of the bold and the broiling that bolsters an energetic story rounded off by an edge of pain. ‘She wanted more, but she wasn’t asking for it, either. Maybe she was afraid I’d never give it? Which was insane, because I’d give this girl the world.’ I gave this story 3/3.5 stars -C O N T E N T W A R N I N G: Lots of f* bombs, swearing and sexual situations. Also a lot of alcohol consumption and characters indulging in weed. The story gives mention to addictions - drugs and alcohol. Mentions a past suicide. S O M E T H I N G S I D I D N’ T L I K E/ C O N C E R N S… 1) I’m not too fond of epilogues that feature a different character; I would have liked to know more about what the future held for Katie and Jesse. 2) I never thought I would say this but the volume of sexual content was too much. Too much sexual content makes this fall more in erotica than an actual romance. I don’t mind erotica at all, but it doused what would otherwise be an amazing romance because of too much sexual content that neglected the romance.They have sexual relations for the first time at the 60% mark, but after this I thought there’d be more relationship depth, but it really is a potent string of lust and desire that consumes most of the story. 3) Most of the events of the story (I mean anything that’s not erotic content of some kind) happens retrospectively, or off page - Katie’s family visiting, visiting here or there. I wanted to see these scenes, some real scenes of substance in real time as actual scenes to cut through the overwhelming cycle of lust and lure. I wanted to read through scenes of Katie and her family, of outings with Jesse, downtime etc. Because we didn’t have this, the story came across as a constant stream sex wrapped up in non-stop sexual antics. 4) 63% in and Jesse’s POV doesn’t give much away - whether he cares about Katie, is beginning to get feelings, nothing telling enough to determine where his head is at, where from Katie, it’s very apparent that this is much more than just sex and a deal. This is why I was conflicted about the centre-most meat of the story. 5) There wasn’t a firm hold on time which made the timeframe confusing here and there. 6) There wasn’t any real point of conflict between the main couple, their interactions commenced quite smoothly - the real conflict had to do with the the ‘believability’ of their fake romance. Some tension here and there would have great. ________________________________________ M Y R A T I N G S Y S T E M: ★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read ________________________________________ I love interacting with fellow readers, reviewers, bloggers and writers! Hearing about reader opinion is the fuel to my reader appetite, so get in touch and comment below! SHARE ON FACEBOOK E A V E A C O M M E N T A N D L E T' S T A L K A B O U T |
VaishaliBorn in the UK Archives
February 2024
Categories
All
2019 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 15 books toward
her goal of
30 books.
hide
2020 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
20 books.
hide
2021 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
10 books.
hide
2022 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
2023 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
DisclaimerAll images of book covers on this site belong to the authors and publishers of the books.
|