Open Road Summer, Emery Lord

Open Road Summer by Emery Lord

Imagine your best friend is America´s new sweetheart and suddenly, you are able to tour the country following her along a country tour, where Matt Finch, the new cute opening act of the tour, will be joining them for all sorts of adventures.
Reagan joins Dee´s summer tour with a broken heart, but when she arrives at her best friend´s tour, she realizes that her heartbreak may not be as awful as Dee´s. Dee is soon surrounded by rumors and articles full of her ex-boyfriend, so her team decides to bring a new distraction for the media, a new opening act. That´s how Matt Finch, a total sweetheart that every girl has had a crush on in middle school, gets to join the tour. When Reagan meets Dee´s fake boyfriend, she knows that she won´t be falling for him, well, that´s until she gets to know him. Aside from all cute looks, what really captivates Reagan is his music. So, Reagan falls in love with his passion and his way of communicating with the world. On the other hand, Dee is trying to live her life as a teenager, even when she has certain rules to follow because she´s under the spotlight, so having her best friend with her will mend her heart and make everything better. This will be a summer they will NEVER forget!
I liked the plot a lot, although it seemed a little cliché, it was nice to read about the music world because I am a person that LOVES music! My favorite part of the whole writing of the novel was the fact that the author added Matt´s lyrics because it made it more real and it gave us an idea of the reason behind Reagan liking his music so much since having that piece of information kind of creates a better logic in your mind instead of just having a piece of information thrown at you. 
Surprisingly, my favorite character in the book was Dee because she was a teenager that was eager to live life and that made her really special. Even though the story is focused on Reagan, especially because it is narrated from her point of view, we see a lot of Dee by her actions. It broke my heart to read about her heartbreak because it sounded so devastating, especially when she was living a very hard life surrounded by millions of people. Also, the whole articles about her ex-boyfriend were the key part that made me feel so bad for her because she had to deal with the horrible breakup and she also had to take care of her image and her reputation, it put her in a situation where she still had to care about her ex when the relationship was over. 
On the other hand, Reagan was definitely not a favorite character of mine, she annoyed me a lot because she is one of those characters that knows what she wants, yet when she can have it, she just backs away and ends up hurting everyone. I could understand why she might have felt betrayed throughout the novel, but the reason why she was feeling that way was that she was so close-minded when someone hurt her, she just ran away without understanding the situation she was in. I do understand that when we are about to get hurt, humans tend to back up a little bit to protect ourselves from the heartbreak, but Reagan kind of took it to another level. She just didn´t want to hear about anything that had to do with it and that may have hurt her more than she expected. 
Matt was a character that I liked but didn´t get obsessed with. He was very easy to let go as time passed by, he isn´t a character that stayed with me for a long amount of time like I did with other characters, yet I do admit that at the time of reading it, I really liked him and his personality. He is very funny and he´s passionate about his work and that seemed very beautiful to me. 
For me, the story seemed more about friendship rather than romance because the whole meaning behind Reagan being on tour with Dee was to celebrate their friendship and to me, that seemed beautiful because there are things that you can ONLY do with your close friend, and Dee having her best friend with her made it easier to start living life the way she was eager to do so.
I believe that it is a perfect book to enjoy if you love music and if you want to read about a friendship that could melt your heart. 

4 out of 5 stars

Love, Sua

The Heartbreakers, Ali Novak

The Heartbreakers by Ali Novak

I just finished reading this novel and I will admit that I have felt the whole roller coaster of emotions.
Stella, Cara, and Drew are triplets and the bond they share is extremely crucial for their lives, just like everyone would expect, but there´s a catch to their pretty story. Cara has cancer and is obsessed with a band called The Heartbreakers. 
The Heartbreakers is a group formed by four guys, extremely good-looking, that make music and perform with instruments, yet their music is not necessarily considered "punk" because their marketing has decided to present them to the world as a pretty boy band with pop tunes, so Stella absolutely hates them. 
Cara´s birthday is coming soon and her siblings are aware of the fact that Cara was too sick to attend a concert from The Heartbreakers, so when Drew knows that they will be doing a signing, they take a LONG drive to get that autograph. On their way to the venue, they stop at Starbucks after Stella says that she cannot function without coffee. Yet, she gets more than just coffee. She meets a total cutie at the shop, who even pays for her coffee. But once they arrive and notice who The Heartbreakers are, she realizes that the adorable guy from the coffee shop is Oliver Perry aka Cara´s biggest crush, who also happens to be The Heartbreakers´ lead singer. 
After waiting three hours in line and not being able to get an autograph, they go to their hotel room and Stella has a fateful meeting with Oliver and his bandmates. Later that evening, they have fun in the pool and there may even be a hot and swoony making out session. But before the night is over, Alec asks Stella for the pictures she took during the evening, which may be the start of an adventure. 
And soon, Stella is traveling across the country with the most popular band while taking photographs and discovering love. 
I have so many things that I want to write about! 
First, I would like to start by talking about the characters. I liked Stella, but there were moments where I did feel like she was being too innocent and she was definitely not getting the hang of dating a band member. Also, she acted exactly the opposite of how she felt, which hurt her more and affected the relationship. Yet, I liked the aspect of her trying to act professional, trying to not create problems, and not get too deep into the whole pretty bubble of being with the band because she still had a sister she needed to go back to. So, in general, Stella was a character that I liked, especially because she has a great personality and is very fun to read about. 
On the other hand, Oliver was a little plain for me. He was sweet, charming, adorable, cute, and he even knows how to cook! But he didn´t quite get me because the story is so big that at some point, I felt that the book wasn´t able to cover many topics or scenes as it needed. Oliver gets very cute scenes and made me love him and he was such a little dork that I ended up loving him, but I wanted to see a little more to him, something other than apologizing, cooking or supporting Stella. 
Believe it or not, my favorite character was JJ! I LOVE him. JJ is the drummer of The Heartbreakers and he is amazing! He is funny and such a sweetheart. He kept me going throughout the novel with his weird pranks, perv moments, love for ketchup and cute nicknames like Butt Nugget. He gave me the amount of laughter that I needed in the novel. I believe that my liking of the story was impacted by JJ. Yet, I will admit that I loved the other guys too, although I wanted to see more from Xander, much more than just his diet and allergies. 
Aside from the member, I loved the bond that the triplets shared because although I don´t have twins, I have siblings that take care of me (I´m the youngest), and I liked reading how a sibling bond can change everything because my siblings and I are really close although we don´t express it. As much as I loved reading about the adventures of The Heartbreakers´ tour, there was a part of me that was eager to know more about Cara´s health improvement and Drew´s experience at college. I wanted the story to be more balanced between romance and family because I felt like we only encountered them suddenly.
Now, I will move on and talk about the story in general. At first glance, the story is something that I would TOTALLY read, the novel is basically what I feed the fangirl that lives inside me. So, when I read about it at Barnes and Noble, I knew that I had to buy it because it was going to be a perfect reading for me. It included cute band members, black skinny jeans, music, groupies, and a backstage pass. In other words, this book was perfect for me and I loved it! I liked reading about the band because I love bands, so it was normal for me to like the book and the adorable characters. 
Yet, what I loved the most about the novel was the musical aspect it included. The whole debating between band members for the new album (a little bit Panic! At The Disco Style) and marketing (them getting makeovers), and my favorite radio interviews! I loved that it included all sides of being in a band, from fights between best friends, silly pranks, crazy parties, new music, groupies and even crazy fan stories. This book was like the perfect fanfiction book that my fangirl needed. 
Now that I have finished, I just want to add how much this book reminded me of 5 Seconds of Summer because I LOVE them and the characteristics of the band members (like Xander´s pink hair!) reminded me of one of my favorite bands! Their whole desire of being Punk-Rock was so 5SOS and the skinny jeans and silly pranks reminded me so much of 5SOS.

I just wanted to add a picture of Michael´s pink hair because it reminded me of Xander´s.
Overall, I enjoyed this book because it really understood my fangirl self, as I have mentioned so much throughout the review, and it was extra fun (thanks to my lovely JJ). It is the type of book that you want to read in a single sitting and you won´t regret it. My only advice is that if you prefer books that are a little more mature, you have to take your time because the book is for ages 12 and up, and it did seem a little immature for me, yet I still enjoyed it.

4 out of 5 stars 

Love, Sua