Review: Resplendently and extravagantly terrible
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 27, 2013
There is no danger of running out of terrible self-published books.  But some terrible books are special, special enough to always be remembered, special enough that I highlight passages to read to others, special enough to help define my own personal meaning of "terrible."This is one of those books.  It's not just a romance with a male main who rarely bathes.  It's not just a rock novel where a guitarist builds his own guitar out of broken pieces and scrap lumber and sands it using the surface of a road.  It's not just a family novel where a man is reunited with his long-lost daughter after hearing somebody, in a state faraway from where he last saw her, talking about a girl named Amanda with brown hair and figuring out that it is his long-lost daughter.It's all of those things together.It's such an amazing hot mess, I don't even know if I can do it justice.Behold the majesty of rock:  "Kyle liked this song because the start came like an alarm clock to wake the crowd and then show them the soothing side of their most articulate playing and smoothest vocals."Kyle is our young unwashed hero.  Part rocker, part guitar builder, part roofer, he falls for Amanda as soon as he sees her.  Amanda is new to town, but she knows right away that Kyle is for her.She's very emotional (after their failed first date, we're told her tears "swam in the soup of all that had happened), but refuses to give up on Kyle, even when Haley -- the local evil rock chick -- decides that she wants Kyle for herself.  Haley always dresses to kill or -- as Smith says -- "Dressed with armor sufficient to ruthlessly battle in any king's court" (this particular outfit, if I remember correctly, is a mini-dress and no panties.  This outfit is actually better than the one she wears in another scene, the "black silk panties" that are "unmistakably feminine and sexy but built to take a soaking").Haley is not good news.  Or, in the words of another character:  "What are you Haley?  You seduce me after you nearly killed my girlfriend, which caused me to lose that girlfriend.  I should turn you into the police . . . I don't even know where you live . . . I'll find you, [fornicate] your brains out, and then call the cops."Things don't go well for our young couple.  After their failed first date, they actually don't have another date or spend any time together outside of hospital rooms, leaving me unclear on when they actually fell in love.  However, this doesn't stop Amanda from being all in.  When Kyle tells her he can't see her anymore, "Her soul charred at the edges with the sadness of burning a love letter amid mourning violins."  Why not?  Isn't that what we all feel after it doesn't work out with a guy we went to a party with?Smith has a way with words that puts you right in the middle of the scene.  Unfortunately, even when you are in the scene, you will be unsure what is happening.  "Amanda set the glass down and looked at this man.  Nothing about him reminded her of anything, nothing remarkable.  He did not seem like an executive nor a criminal."  Well, that really narrows it down.But for those of us who need our HEA, don't fear!  Kyle and Amanda find their way to love or . . . something like it.  "Her fingers unhooked his pants and freed him.  Amanda looked at the glowing hot brand that she so unceremoniously released.  Kyle wiggled and pushed his pants from his hips.  She watched how his [member] hinged from side to side. . . she could not believe how much she wanted him inside her, to fill that raw need that splay open."That is fancy stuff.  Maybe Kyle used the parts he didn't use to build the guitar to trick himself out.And things even work out for Kyle's career.  After playing a stellar show at the winery, he gets a business card from an music exec.  And not from any unknown company either -- Kyle says "I know that company -- they completely changed the way that music is bought and sold and marketed."  Bought AND sold AND marketed?  Something tells me Kyle won't be bathing in the swimming pools of abandoned houses for much longer.