Book Review: Road Rash by Mark Huntley Parsons

Summary: 

A teenage drummer finds out what life is really like on tour with a rock band in this funny, funky, bittersweet debut YA novel. For anyone who loved Almost Famous or This Is Spinal Tap.

 

After being dropped from one band, 17-year-old drummer Zach gets a chance to go on tour with a much better band. It feels like sweet redemption, but this is one rocky road trip. . . .  

Zach's in control on the drums, driving the band, keeping things moving at the right pace. But when the show is over, his timing is all off. The jealousies and rivalries within his new group keep him off-balance. The awesome original song he recorded backfires. And the girl he left back home is suddenly talking about this other guy . . . 

Release Date: February 11, 2014

Age Group: YA

Source: Review copy from publisher

Reviewed by: Madi B

Summary: 

Usually you can separate books into two categories, boy books and girl books. This was most definitely a boy book. And I was fine with that! I can talk Ranger’s Apprentice with the best of them! I really enjoyed this book. Even though I know nothing about being a drummer or touring with a band, I was still sucked into Zach’s world of drumsticks and tour buses. I was impressed with not only the amount of drummer vocabulary, but also the fact that I never felt over my head with all these words I didn’t know. (This may be because I play guitar.) The beginning of this book was super similar to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist but I liked this book WAY better! (And that book has a movie!!) 

Some of my favorite aspects were…

•  Love story. It was so dang cute! But not overbearing! When I closed the book, I didn’t feel jipped. I didn’t feel like it was too much or too little. (Thumbs up to the author) Although it could have been elaborated at some parts…(Page 292!!! Over the phone?!? I want morrrre!!!!)
•   Friendship. I liked the sense of camaraderie that developed over the story!  It made me want to join a band!
• The drumming. I always fell like when I read a book, I’m suddenly in the main character’s shoes. When I read suddenly I can paint or interpretive dance like pro, or in this case, play the drums. It was a new experience for me that I really enjoyed. Everything from the laying down tracks (haha it looks like I picked up on some drummer vocab) to the actual drumming itself was fun and interesting. I was never bored in the story. I thought the author did a great job making it easy for non-drummers to understand the book just as well as the hard-core drummers.

Some complaints…

•  The book would skip sometimes, minorly, (Can you believe minorly isn’t a word? What kind of crap is this! I’m rebelling!!!) but the skip is still there. Sometimes in those skips, Zach would be talking about how SHE got on the stage and SHE started singing and SHE sounded great. This would be totally fine if there was only one girl in the book but there’s like 5. JUST TELL ME WHO YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. This happened in some crucial parts… (*cough *cough page 271-273) some crucial ROMANTIC parts!!!!

Other than that, the book was good. In fact it makes me want to Google “drum teachers in my area.”  I’m looking forword to reading more from this author.