About the Book
-
Author:
- Jenna Voris
- Genre:
- Contemporary
- Voices:
- Bisexual
- Cis Girl
- Lesbian
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: Confusing
Drinking Buddy: Whiskey Red
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (language, alcohol use, sexuality)
Talky Talk: Rough Draft
Bonus Factors: Scavenger Hunt, Country Music
Bromance Status: Playlist
Cover Story: Confusing
Okay, it’s a nice cover, with Darren and Kendall and Decklee’s benevolent spirit looking down on them. But here’s the thing. One of our two main POV characters is Darren. And my entire life, Darren has always been a masculine name, so I went into this book thinking Darren was the dude on the cover, and the girl was the romantic interest. Then Darren started talking about their ex-boyfriend, and how they didn’t fit in in their small Arkansas town, and I thought, sure, being a gay, Black guy in rural Arkansas can’t be easy, but at least he’s friends with that girl on the cover. And it makes sense he’d enjoy that Dolly Parton-looking singer. Then, on page 30, Darren refers to themself as a daughter, and I suddenly realize Darren is the girl on the cover, not the guy. Then I had to go back and reread the first chapter, picturing Darren as a white girl. Yes, there was a feminine pronoun buried in the back cover blurb, but if you’re going to give your character an unusual name, you might have to spell it out for your readers. I’m a teacher, I haven’t met a girl Darren in 27 years of education.
The Deal:
Darren (who is a girl!) lives in a small Arkansas town, where she dreams of nothing but getting away and becoming a journalist. She and her mom are on their own. Her mother is a cancer survivor, and during the dark days of her illness, she and Darren found strength in the music of Decklee Cassel, her hometown’s number one daughter.
And now Decklee has died. But she’s left behind a scavenger hunt. Whoever can decipher her clues will unearth an entirely new Decklee Cassel album, as well as win three million dollars. And Darren thinks she may know where to begin. Accompanied by her friend Kendall (the guy on the book cover and the only person she knows with a car), they head off to Tennessee.
In alternate chapters, we get in the head of Decklee herself. How she left home at fifteen, determined to do anything to leave her miserable little hometown and make it as a country star. How she teamed up with a songwriter named Mickenlee, who became her partner…in more ways than one.
Drinking Buddy: Whiskey Red
I really liked Darren. She’s stagnating in Arkansas, but doesn’t have much of an opportunity to get out. She realizes she’s bisexual, but isn’t sure what to do with that awareness. She knows Kendall could easily be more than a friend, but what’s the point, if she’s leaving town and he’s staying.
Decklee, on the other hand, is someone who knows what she wants and will do anything at all to get it. She wants to be a superstar, and with the help of Mickenlee, her lyricist, and Markell, her fashion designer friend, she’s going to get it. And if that means locking a rival in a closet, abandoning Markell when he comes out as gay, and pretending Mickenlee is just a friend, then so be it.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (language, alcohol use, sexuality)
Everyone except Darren seems to realize that she skews toward liking women. Her mother, Kendall, and her grandmotherly neighbor Carla don’t care. Times have changed, even in Arkansas, and Darren just needs to be honest with herself.
But during the heyday of Decklee’s career, beginning in the 1960s, one simply did not come out as a lesbian. It would be a career ender, especially on the country music scene. And as much as she loves Mickenlee, as much as she wishes they could be together, she can allow nothing to stand in the way of her glory. Nothing.
Talky Talk: Rough Draft
There was a lot about this book that was just…off. Things that should have been fixed in the editing process (though I did read an ARC, so maybe they were fixed). For starters, Darren and Decklee’s small, rural hometown was called Mayberry. Seriously? And there were other little things. Decklee has an answering machine in 1970, a year before they were widely commercially available. Her producer talks about making music videos, long before that was really a thing. One of the scavenger hunt clues is on a flash drive, buried under a rock with no protective covering. They talk to a hotel clerk who remembers an incident when Decklee stayed there in the 1970s…which means she’s been working that desk for nearly fifty years. When they need to see what’s on the flash drive, instead of going to the library or buying an adapter, they give it to a reporter, and then let her share the clues with the world.
None of these ruined the book for me, but they took me out of the story every time.
Bonus Factor: Scavenger Hunt
Darren knows that’s she’s competing against a million Decklee Cassel fans, and while she might have a good idea or two, there’s no way she’ll be the first to discover the clues. But she knows her mother’s cancer might return, and three million dollars would go a long way to paying medical bills and getting herself out of Mayberry. Darren, for some reason, shares her ideas online, and when she does discover clues, she lets other people take the credit. But with obnoxious influencer Mike Fratt determined to win, Darren knows she owes it to Decklee’s memory to do this right.
Bonus Factor: Country Music
I may be showing my age, but it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish country from pop. Decklee comes from the old school era, when country stars grew up in small towns, played steel guitars, and drank like fishes.
Bromance Status: Playlist
I think I’ll see what other works this author has to show us.
Literary Matchmaking
The Jump, by Brittany Morris, is another high-stakes scavenger hunt book.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s The Inheritance Games is another good series in the genre.
Brandy Colbert’s The Blackwoods is also another generation spanning book about creatives.
FCC full disclosure: I received neither money nor whiskey for writing this review, though I did get a free ARC from the publisher.
