The Rock Star in Seat 3A – Jill Kargman

    It's Hazel's thirtieth birthday and she has everything she's ever wanted: a kickass job, a dream apartment in New York City, and the perfect boyfriend—who's just days away from proposing. Hazel thinks she's happy but isn't quite ready to settle down. So when her most far-fetched fantasy enters the realm of the possible, shouldn't she drop everything to see it through?
The morning after her birthday, Hazel boards a flight to L.A. only to get the surprise of her life. When she's bumped up to first class, extra legroom and free drinks are absolutely the last things on her mind when she catches sight of her seatmate: her all-time biggest celebrity crush, rock star Finn Schiller! Only the night before she'd confessed her infatuation with the gorgeous musician, and her boyfriend joked that she had a free pass if she ever met him. Hazel can't believe fate has actually thrown them together.
Even more unbelievable is that during the flight they genuinely connect. Finn likes her uncensored cursing and wicked sense of humor, and that she's unlike all of his groupies; Hazel likes his killer looks, ripped physique, and soulful music. But what started as a fantasy quickly becomes a real attraction, and after a dream date and taste of the rock-star life with Finn in L.A., Hazel is forced to examine the track her life is on. Indulging in a passionate affair with a rock star seems crazy—but could she ever forgive herself if she walked away from her wildest dream coming true? And is her wildest dream the stuff that happiness is made of?

Okay, so… Here’s where my problem lies: Poor research on my part; before reading books, I’ve stopped reading the entire summary because I like to be thrown into the story and not have anything at all spoiled by reading the synopsis of the book. I saw the giveaway on BookTrib and thought it looked like a cute little chick lit story. Girl meets her crush and they start to hit it off. Sounded great! What I didn’t realize — and far too late — was that it wasn’t as innocent as it seemed.

Hazel has a boyfriend. An awesome one. An awesome one who proposed to her and she pretended she didn’t see it. Right off the bat, I’m not a fan of Hazel. To make things worse (for me, better for Hazel), she meets Finn and they hit it off. They started to really hit it off and then Hazel’s questioning breaking it off with her boyfriend to kick it with a rock star and her all-time biggest crush. To me, I was like, “No! How disloyal!” and I threw a fit (in my head) about where this story was going. I was saddened by how much it was not like I thought it was! But like I said, kind of my fault for not looking into that!

Anyway, so the rest of the book…. Ahh ummm, still didn’t care for it. Okay, so I’m no saint or anything, and I’ve never been hesitant about a book before because of its language, but this book was just way too crass for me. Okay, anecdote time:
I actually began reading this book because I took it on the plane with me on vacation a few weeks ago. I thought, “Cute book about being on an airplane while I’m on an airplane!” I’m cheesy, I know. So I started reading, and my boyfriend was sitting next to me and he glanced at the book and was like, “What are you reading!?!” because this book is not censored in any way, shape, or form. Cursing, followed by sexual innuendos, followed by more curses, followed by more sexual references and cursing and sex. It was just overwhelming! I’ve never been bothered by swears or sex in a book before, but this was just a little too much for me and lots of things taken too far. Thrown in an onslaught of pop culture references that I didn’t care for and I was ready to put the book down and back away slowly.
Lesson learned: Although YA lit may not always appear age-appropriate, it will still be much more appropriate to read in public places!

I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes it’s not a bad thing to look further into books before reading them! I try not to ruin things with mysteries, but this was clearly an open book and I should have checked it out better before jumping in!

Hazel: You suck. You’re obnoxious and still act like a teenage girl even though you’re thirty. And I watched Friends — There’s no such thing as a break. You’re a cheater.
Wylie: Poor, poor Wylie. He was so sweet and he got trampled on. Except he really seemed like quite the pushover… So I don’t like him either.
Hazel’s Sister (I can’t even remember her name): Bad influence! Terribly, terribly so.
Finn: Finn actually seemed like the most enjoyable character of the book! At least he was honest and not totally corrupt or the cliche dirty rock star (although he dressed like it and had a rep like it).

Skip it

This one just didn’t work for me. It really wasn’t my type of book and I can’t stand books where the main character cheats.