How to Kill a Rockstar by Tiffanie DeBartolo

How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie DeBartolo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 Stars

“Personally, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them. I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world”

I’m very surprised that I liked How to Kill a Rock Star, usually these kind of books don’t do anything for me, mainly because I don’t get them, but this one I do. The book reminds me a lot of Effortless and Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens. There’s a lot that goes on in How to Kill a Rock Star, I thought the length would annoy me at 417 pages, but everything seemed to flow and go smoothly.

Eliza is your twenty-something gal, she adopted a fear of flying ever since her parents dying in a plane crash. She finally moves to NY to be closer to her brother and work as a music Journalist. Her brother is in a band and the lead singer, Paul, is Eliza’s roommate. Already the story line is juicy and I’ll admit, I wasn’t a fan of Paul, not even in the middle of the book when he was sweet. I couldn’t really pinpoint what bothered me about Paul, maybe in some way he was just too music snobby to me. His character was kind of unrealistic and I pictured a handsome, but dirty slob.

I would describe Eliza as silly, very crazy and a self martyr, do I dislike her? No, I get her. There are some choices Eliza makes, which I don’t agree, but I understand. I think Eliza is the typical girl in the sense, she reacts to situations, before she thinks about the consequences.

In a way, Eliza and Paul were kind of meant for each other. There’s a slight love triangle in the book and I deeply sympathize for the 3rd party, but this isn’t about him, it’s about Eliza and Paul. I feel like Eliza and Paul’s over all character flaws complimented each other so well, the relationship in itself seemed natural, like it was normal to witness their blow-up fights and pitfalls.

Things I didn’t like, I thought the title was actually the downfall of the book, it didn’t make sense, until towards the end and it’s hard to capture the audience with a silly title, I originally thought the book was a murder mystery. I know I shouldn’t say it, but the cover is pretty ugly too. Even though I like reading it from Eliza’s and Paul’s POV, it was hard to distinguish whose view I was reading until a few sentences in. I wish I didn’t know there was a twist prior to reading, because as I was reading the twist it became very obvious, but reading about the twist made me want to read the book, so catch 22.

Putting aside the negatives, there are a lot of good standalone quotes. Tiffanie DeBartholo has a way describing things using words that make you stop what you just read, go back and re-read it and thinking to yourself, yeah, I kind of agree with that. You really can see and feel the love in the words. That’s probably one of the reasons why the reviews from other readers contain so many quotes, there’s a lot of good writing.

This book is filled with a lot of raw, gut retching emotion; I really didn’t know which way it was going to go until the last chapter. It is also sad a times and it really makes you rethink life, you question if you are doing something that makes you happy, you question if you are living up to the fullest and you question if it’s possible to be completely as long as you are with the one you love? I recommend this book only if you are prepared for roller coaster of emotions.


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