Reviewed by Cheryl

TITLE: Terrible Things

SERIES: Star Shadow #1

AUTHOR: Beth Bolden

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 431 Pages

RELEASE DATE: 19 January 2020

BLURB:

When Caleb Chance walked out in Detroit five years ago, leaving his band, millions of his fans and his lover behind, Leo knew he could never forgive.

Some things, no matter what the cause, are unforgivable.

But Leo never expected Caleb to show up again, clean and sober and wanting to get their band, Star Shadow, back together. He definitely never expected to agree to Caleb’s plan.

He never expected to confront the love of his life again – or the disaster of his past, the hopelessness of his future, and every terrible thing he’s been carrying inside him.

But maybe some things aren’t so terrible after all.

REVIEW:

This is a very real book. Everything from the characters, to the situations they are placed in, to the emotions they struggle with are solid and believable. Star Shadow is a boy band that is re-inventing itself after its members have grown up and the book does a very good job of dealing with issues that might arise from such a situation. Alcohol abuse and depression are also dealt with in a thoughtful way without taking away from the gut-wrenching harm done to real people, in fact to a group of people.

There is really very little to complain about, apart from the occasional slip in grammar. This is entirely forgivable to me, as I believe the characters and story are far more important than the fine points in the writing. If the author is able to bring alive vivid characters within a framework of generally good writing and engaging situations, then it’s more that good enough for me. The only reason I feel I have to mention it is because I am aware that a good portion of the readers are likely to be involved with the writing community and there are far too many purists who are ready to criticise slips in following the rules.

My favourite character is Caleb. Despite the darkness of the past five years, he has bounced back stronger than ever. Given what we are told about how he used to be, it seems that his experiences have brought about considerable growth and he shows the greatest maturity of all the characters. He is able to look objectively at his past behaviour and experiences and rise about it. He deals with Leo’s hurt and the pressure of fame with alacrity and grace, bouncing back with his bad boy innocence intact along with a sense of grounding and peace. I appreciate the book is told from Leo’s POV but Caleb appears to be far more emotionally stable than Leo.

While Caleb has faced down his demons, Leo is still very much in the grip of his. He mourned Caleb as if he were dead and never got over his grief. Clearly, his grief was, at some point, taken over by a deep depression that he simply has not been ready or able to recover from. Caleb’s arrival shocked him out of the hole he had dug himself into but one of the great strengths of the book is that it clearly shows you can’t just put aside depression because the thing that sparked it has been resolved. After five years, Leo’s mental health could never have improved overnight. His constant breakdowns reveal that depression is not something that can be got over like a wound that has a bandage applied.

The other members of the band are a solid presence but very much in the background of the Caleb and Leo show. We are left with a sense of who Max, Benjy and Diago are, but they are not fully rounded. If I had not been aware of future books, I would have been disappointed that we had done little more than scratch beneath the surface. As it is, I feel more that we have been given tasters of more to come.

One disappointment is that there are a few characters that seemed to have some importance in one way or another that simply vanished without any kind of closure or even so much as a goodbye and thanks. (Not naming because of spoilers) I will be very disappointed if we don’t get to meet them again and have some kind of ongoing dialogue, or at least a proper exit.

Whilst I am not generally fond of flashbacks, the ones containing in this book are very brief and add to the substance of the story. They are therefore a valid story-telling device that didn’t bother me at all.

On the whole, the book is a solid, emotionally satisfying tale of a group of friends who have grown up at different speeds and have come back together at a later date in similar but different circumstances. They have to deal with their differing levels of maturity and the things that have happened to all of them in the meantime. The background of rebuilding a once-great music career adds flavour but is not a focal point, which is a refreshing change.

This is too emotionally charged and weighty to be considered a coffee-time read, and is long, at over four-hundred pages, but it is well worth it for a cracking story with great characters and the promise of more to come.

RATING:

BUY LINK: 

Amazon