Review: Taylor

Title: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles: Volume 1

Author: Cecilia Tan

Series: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles

Pages: 92

Publisher: Smashwords

Blurb:

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Coming out and coming of age in the days of AIDS, MTV, Reaganomics, and Just Say No. Daron Marks is a young guitar player with a dream, make it big like the guys he grew up idolizing in New Jersey–or at least escape his dysfunctional family. He makes it as far as music school in Rhode Island, and the stages of Boston beckon. But it’s hard to succeed from the closet.

Review:

This first volume is FREE!!!

I liked this. I did. Daron is a fascinating character in that he seems SO normal and someone that most readers can relate to in his experiences. The first book is always what I call ‘The Set-up’. The author is giving us background info necessary, but not always super intriguing or exciting. The parts with Matthew were sad. Just sad, but I liked that I got to see the struggle Daron feels with coming in to his own. It’s not just gay/lesbians that have a problem coming out. Even bisexuals worry about what others think of them. I don’t know enough of Daron yet to say if he’s strictly dicky yet, but I could relate to going along with the experiences and sexuality of the moments but putting a voice to them wasn’t something he could handle. I’ve been there.

His attraction or obsession or even curiosity towards Ziggy fascinated me. Again, I’ve been there. I think sometimes you meet people who you relate to, bond with, etc. but they are just tipped a bit more towards what you are comfortable with being to the public. That’s how I read their relationship thus far. Ziggy lives and breathes music but he’s tilted more towards the attention, the rush, the spontaneous moments, whereas Daron is a bit more reserved and logical towards life. But he’s comfortable at the moment where he’s at. He’s not comfortable with himself or his place in life. Being comfortable with your present actions and being comfortable with your place in life are different feelings, but I get that Ziggy’s energy draws him in.

However, this had a lot of filler that dragged for me. That girl who constantly chased after Daron, while I get her ‘place’, she bored me to death. Remo, Digger, and Bart’s love life…all that I get is the support to Daron, but the pace dragged for me in places.

The last 20%, though, was special and different enough from the rest of the book that I felt like I was finally reading the ‘real’ Daron. On to book 2!

Rating:

Links: amazon smashwords