Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⬜⬜
Title: Girls with Bad Reputations
Author: Xio Axelrod
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Philadelphia, PA / The USA
Month Read: February 2024
Book Type: E-Arc Audiobook
Publication: February 2024
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Pages: 448
*Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for my advanced Audiobook. It has in no way influenced this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
TRIGGER WARNING-
Sex / Racism / Mysoginy / Drugs /
No Spoiler Summary:
All her life, Kayla heard the same Don't be so loud. Don't act so wild. Don't take up so much space. Now she's the beating heart of an up-and-coming rock band…and the whole world is going to know her name. Once upon a time, the pressure to be the perfect daughter nearly broke Kayla Whitman. Desperate to find an outlet away from her controlling mother, she picked up a pair of drumsticks, forever altering the rhythm of her life. Since then, she's been determined to make her own way, finding her home with her bandmates even as she fights to keep her past and her present firmly separate. Things were simple enough when the Lillys were playing local gigs at dive bars, but now they're on their first official tour―and all Kayla can see are warning signs. Desperate to escape the worry churning inside her, Kayla finds solace in quiet tour bus driver Ty Baldwin…and discovers in him a kindred spirit like no one she's ever met before. Their connection is immediate and intense, but when increasing scrutiny from the press threatens to destroy Ty's newfound peace and Kayla's carefully guarded secrets, Kayla's forced to make an impossible pursue her dream and risk destroying everyone around her? Or give in and lose the chance of ever becoming the person she's always known she could be.
Review:
I'm disappointed that Book of the Month chose not to continue with the second Lilly's book, after I had really loved The Girl With Stars in Her Eyes. I think contemporary fiction novels about black women in Rock music are few and far between, and these novels in particular (while also being love stories) are something I'd really like to see more of since so many books BOTM chooses by black authors are traumatic. I think there is a lot of value in having books that are quite different than the normal offerings, and I wish I could have also had a matching set when the others come out. Alas, I was super psyched to get the audiobook from Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca, because I got to hear the book which added a really fun, different experience for me that I enjoyed a lot. The two different narrators were really wonderful, and I will 100% look up other work that they've done.
I like that the love story in the book is not technically the main focus, and it didn't feel very forced to me which was also quite enjoyable. The characters are super likable (you already know Kayla a little bit if you read TGWSIHE) and Ty is wonderful. Both characters are trying to move forward and away from their respective pasts, and the book is filled with really fun characters along the way. Ty's Grandfather, Van, was 100% my favorite.
You don't have to read TGWSIHE to enjoy this book. You'll miss the fall-out with Candy which is a subplot, but nothing else is super ties in in a way where this book isn't enjoyable. I think that is really interesting, but great for people who may not want to double back. You will spoil the couple from the first novel, and a bit of the plot over there, but if you don't care about that you can always double back as well.
Overall, I was happy to find The Lilly's again, and catch up with where they are now. I hope it doesn't take 3 years to get the next one!
Recommendation:
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes by Xio Axelrod
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton
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