4.7 stars – 20 Reviews
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled
Here’s the set-up:
Lisa Simon, age 37, still loves loud punk rock and hates Dave Matthews with an all-consuming passion. April 15, 2001 should have been just another Sunday night. But a news headline landing in Lisa’s email inbox changes everything: “Joey Ramone is dead.” The death of one of her teenage heroes serves as an long-overdue wake-up call causing Lisa to examine her life and how she’s lived it, from her youth as a poet on the streets of the East Village to 10 years later, all grown up with a career and a fiance. Add to the mix Jake McDaniel, lead singer of million-selling, critically-regarded Seattle band Blue Electric, known better to Lisa as the starving renegades who lived next door to her when she first arrived in Seattle. In the midst of an unexpectedly heated argument with the fiance over the historical relevance (or not) of the Ramones – which forces Lisa to face the truth about her relationship – Jake writes and invites Lisa to LA. Throwing what seems like half her cd collection in the car, along with a wardrobe consisting of high heels, jeans and t-shirts, Lisa starts driving from Seattle to LA in the middle of the night, accompanied by music, memories, and the ghosts of the past. Arriving in LA, she finds refuge, but also collides with her past, present and future; decisions need to be made, and this time, Lisa stands her ground.
Reviews:
B-Sides and Broken Hearts is a wonderful book that made me remember why I love music. When I finished the book, I immediately began to miss the characters– the sign of a good piece of fiction, in my eyes.
If you love music, especially if you love music in a way that borders on obsessive, you need to read this book. If your love for music has faded and you want to remember why you loved it so much, you DEFINITELY need to read it.
– Betsy Ellison, Amazon Reviewer
Caryn Rose’s B-Sides and Broken Hearts is a rare book, one that incorporates music seamlessly into its core. Rose’s debut novel is filled with characters whose love for music is great and relatable, their passion for ’80s and ’90s indie rock and punk jumps off the page in this absorbing novel.
– Largehearted Boy
If you’ve ever sat in a diner at 3 a.m. after a concert and hashed over the set list minute by minute, song by song — or marked the events in your life by what tour was taking place at the time, or which record was just released — or waited in line all night to buy concert tickets – or drove across the country to see a show — then likely you will enjoy this book as much as I did…Rose is steeped in rock and roll history, this is her life blood, she walks the walk and talks the talk.
– Great Rock & Roll Reads for the Fall, Huffington Post
About The Author
Caryn Rose is a Brooklyn-based writer and photographer who documents rock-and-roll, baseball and urban life. She covers the ups and downs of the New York Mets at metsgrrl.com, reports on Bruce Springsteen for Backstreets Magazine and brucespringsteen.net, and ruminates about music at jukeboxgraduate.com. She lives in Greenpoint with her boyfriend and her cat, Jackie Wilson. B-Sides And Broken Hearts is her first novel.
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