Review: Long live the Rock 'n Roll
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 28, 2013
(SPOILER FREE REVIEW)*4.5 stars *Aahh, what a treat that was. Holy cow did Karina Halle outdid herself this time. I've read all Halle's books and this one is definitely the scariest and the hottest so far. She really got down and dirty creating characters in The Devil's Reprise :).I'm not even going to comment on the writing. It was superb. I'm in awe of K. Halle's ability to describe things, make them seem alive and make them feel real. She doesn't tell a story, she grabs you by the goddamn collar and drags into the eReader, places you in the story and makes you watch, suffer, love and hate together with the characters.In this second book it's Dawn who is in trouble.She have may or may not made a deal with the devil. When things seem too good to be true, they usually are, right? If you've read the first book you know that Sage and Dawn are not together. Down went back home to work as a music journalist and Sage went to pursue his career as a solo artist.One day, she gets a call from Sage asking her to come with him on the tour to Europe to "document his journey". :) There are a lot of unresolved feeling between those two. Remember the ending of the first book? She agrees, not only because it's good for her career, but mostly because she needs some answers.And then we have Sage.If you look in the dictionary, under the phrase "Emotional rock bottom" you will see a picture of him. He lost his bandmates, his woman. That completely f@qed him up. He's already at the rock bottom, and he is still digging... Sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll, a little bit more drugs and a little bit more sex.God, how much coke did he snort though out the story. A kilo? :-).But even with all that stupid sh!t he does, trying to f@q his way into a coke induced oblivion, it's hard to hate him. You see how that whole "I made a deal with the devil and things went to sh!t" messed him up. He lost everything that was dear to him. His straggles feels genuine and raw. Half of the time he is drunk out of his mind and the other half he is high as a kite.When Dawn arrives there is a lot of miscommunication between them, which is very fun to read. Sage: "Since you didn't (...) I assumed..." Dawn "Since you said (...) I assumed...".Aside from from all that bad blood between Sage and Dawn, there is a devil lurking the the shadows, waiting for Dawn to keep her end of the bargain. And that's when the fun starts :).The scary scenes in the book is absolutely terrifying. The hotel scene with the flies, yuck. The bathroom scene , ugh :-S, and the scene on the train, were my favorite.Now, for the hot scenes. I don't want to spoil the story so I'm just going to say that they did it the rock-start-style ;-)."You feel too good," I hissed through my teeth as the pressure build. "Too good for me.. And angel."Just don't f@q me like one."I loved that on the outside Sage was hard core, filth-talking, can't-feel-anything-no-more rock star. And on the inside this deeply caring, sad, and just lost man. He had moments where I just wanted to bitch-slap him, but he also had some that grabbed my heart and squeezed it tightly. (God I hope I won't get flagged for this one, it was a beautiful moment :-S)But it's not just the main characters that I liked. I loved Jacob and his drill sergeant ways :). And Trick. My god. He defies the phrase "Drugs, sex and rock 'n roll" :-D.But here comes the reason for 4  stars. I gave The Devil's Reject 3 stars. I often give 3 stars for mediocre reads, but that's not the case with Karina Halle's books. I felt like many of the characters in TDR was way to similar to hers EIT series, and not because it was badly written or lacked something. To some extent I still do. Even though I did love this book I felt that there were too many similarities to EIT for my liking.(I know I've said that it's a spoiler free review, but I really want point this out. It's not a major spoiler, but feel free to jump over it if you want to ;-)).Among other things, there was a character, we got to meet, that made me go "oh, no". Max. Not because I didn't like him, but because he was exactly as the Max we already know (If you've read EIT). Tall, ginger, mysterious. You don't quite know if he is bad or good, his intentions is not very clear, because of the smirks he gives to Sage when he's around Dawn. Sounds familiar :-S? Yeah.His character took quite a bit of space in the book and that's why I feel like I should take not just  star, but the whole star away. But my hands refuse to listen to my brain, because the book left me nostalgic. I didn't live in the 70's, but I lived in the 80's. Boy did I lived in the 80's :-D. It brought me some good memories. No snorting coke for me though (I wonder if I missed out on some major fun by not trying it. I will never know :-( :-D). There were some scene that made me feel like I was there, at the concert, being squeezed from all sides by people jumping up and down, singing along and having the time of their lives.All and all, this book left me feeling good and happy. I enjoyed it tremendously.(I won the copy in a giveaway)