Laura’s Review of Phoenix Rockstar (Biker Rockstar #1) by Bec Botefuhr

Basic Summary: Violet has been raised in a world with bikers, rough men and separated parents.  The only savior in her world was her love for Travis, her best friend.  They grew up together, creating a hopeless friendship against all odds.  The he left, with no goodbyes, no explanations.

            Travis when on and became a successful rockstar, Violet moved on and though she was finally over it.  Then Travis returns and tugs on her heart strings all over again.  She finds it hard to say no, she is different now…she isn’t the girl he once adored; dark things have happened to her.  What is she isn’t what he believes he wants so badly?

What I Like About This Book:  The story has a great plot line, and flows nicely.  It’s not too slow and not too fast.  The actual story line itself is great, and it has the ability to hook into Violet’s and Travis’ love story.  The book ends with a kick ass cliffhanger and the end has you edge your seat.

Cons:  This book lacks many things, and you glaringly obvious is the massive lack of details that if they were there would’ve had me get more into the story and the characters.  Details are so important because they lay the ground work for a story, and communicate not only what the characters are saying but what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking, and help build a personality.  The chapters are horribly choppy, when one ends and the other begins there is no link causing the book to feel like the author wrote a bunch of scenes and slapped them in the book rather than creating a flow. 

            I would’ve liked this book soooooooooo much more if the writing was better.  Usually I don’t like to criticize an author’s writing too much because it’s more of a matter of opinion and can come across too judgmental.  Yet the writing in this book is too basic and comes across childish, where is an editor when you need them?!?!?! For example, an entire paragraph began with the same word on top of completely fragmented sentences.  I felt like I was reading an essay I wrote when I was 12, not a hot steamy romance. 

            The basic descriptions of scenes are also just horrible, when writing the background environment in a scene you need to make sure the details are such that I can picture everything in my head perfectly.  It helps connect you to not only the environment but he characters as well.  This book has NONE of that, for example when Violet walks into Travis’ house and the author is explaining what his house consists of I felt like I was reading a real estate ad.  I don’t care how many bedrooms and bathrooms his house has, tell me the placements of the rooms, the color of the walls, the furniture in the rooms.  Give me a feel of what Travis lives in, give me hints to his personality through his house; there is none of this!  When Violet walks into his house, tell me what is to the right and what is to the left.  Is the kitchen immediately to the right, or is towards the back of the house?  Is it an open floor plan, or is it more room by room?  Tell me what his things mean to Travis, or what Violet’s impression of Travis is based on his environment.  The same goes for Travis’ office and Violet’s room at her dad’s house.  There is nothing for me to base their personalities, their likes and dislikes on by telling me there is a kitchen, a dining room, and living room.  What does Chief’s house look like?  We get a description of what Violet’s room consists of, but that’s it! We need more!!! I get when you read certain books you want to fall in love with the characters and in order for that to happen you need details and that just doesn’t exist in this book. 

            Another big negative was the actual conversations between characters; to me it felt too forced and robotic.  For example the sentence “I will drop by on my way to Reagan’s” it would flow better if it was “I’ll drop by on my way to work,” real people don’t talk to like machines they shorten their words, each part of the world has their own dialect or ways the form sentences and there is nothing from these characters that tells me they are west coast people because their words are too formal and not grounded at all. 

            Yet another huge issue I have with this story line is that if you are going to have a book take place in America then the sayings and names of things have to be American!!! No one in America, especially LA says “behave” like they were in a movie from Austin Powers.  I get that the author isn’t from America, but then don’t make the characters from America if you don’t know our colloquialisms.  It was a real hang up I had with Fifty Shades of Grey as well, make the characters actually BE American!!  Make sure you know the area well enough that you can add the details to a book that not only describe the background environment but the city or town they live in as well.  It can’t be a city you always wanted to live in, it has to be a place you feel at home with because we want to feel at home there too when reading.   

Overall:  This book needs an editor and stat!!!! I can see that the author loves to write, and can create wonderful stories, but the writing has to match that and it just doesn’t.  I almost wanted to stop reading at certain point the writing was so bad, but the story was compelling enough for me to keep going but that’s all that hooked me was the story.  It’s almost like I had to rewrite everything in head as I went along just so I could get to the end.