Title: Love Songs & Other Lies
Author: Jessica Pennington
Publisher: Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Books
Release Date: April 24, 2018
I’m back reviewing books for Net Galley! Honestly, I had forgotten about this website until I saw someone mention it on Instagram, and I immediately went and requested some advanced copies. This is one I got approved for almost instantly, and I was really glad; the synopsis sounded interesting and the musical twist on their relationship grabbed my attention right from the beginning.
Virginia (Vee) Miller is looking forward to her summer on the road with her high school rock band friends, now known as Your Future X. What she doesn’t know when she decides to join their tour is that her ex will be there; and those wounds definitely haven’t healed yet. Now, Vee and Cam are forced to work through the problems that ended their relationship while the entire world is watching.
The structure of this novel is absolutely what works the best. Told in a then/now format, Pennington slowly reveals the beginnings of Vee and Cam’s relationship, switching back to now to create even more intrigue. It made the plot more interesting, making the reader desperate to get to the end to figure out what put an end to what seemed like an incredibly compatible relationship. What may have been a predictable plot in a more straightforward novel becomes more interesting with this structure.
Having two points of view also helps in giving the reader a fuller picture of the relationship; if we got only Cam’s or only Vee’s point of view, we would be likely to be biased toward one or the other. The inclusion of both their voices makes the reader feel empathy for both sides of the relationship. They both have reasons for doing what they do.
With a cast of extremely relatable characters and an immersive plot structure, fans of summer romance and rock bands will find a home in Pennington’s story.