Woo-ee, this was a ride! Grit and music and Americana and road trips and complicated families and joy and pain and the next big thing, wrapped in sheer blood-pumping prose. I'd half-forgotten how good a writer Rio is and it was great to finally read something new of hers. Her characters feel real and cinematic at the same time. She writes settings so you can smell the dust, feel the heat, hear the music. And the emotions. Oh god, the emotions. I know these characters intimately now and I felt every second.
I'm sure I'm missing as many musical references as I caught Shakespeare ones in If We Were Villains but that makes it no less of an experience. I want to flip back in time for the concerts. I want to take life by the throat and throw it to the wind. I want a cheeseburger. I wouldn't have it any other way.