Book Review: Groupie

• My review

  The author wasn’t kidding when she said “Don’t read it unless you like to ugly cry… and also unless you like threesomes, foursomes… and moresomes.”

  I didn’t cry, but Groupie does have a fair amount of angst and somehow I loved this book despite that.

  I usually avoid sad books like the plague. I don’t like crying, I don’t like sadness, I read The Fault in Our Stars and despite how beautiful and well-written it is, I didn’t enjoy it simply because it was a sad story. Groupie is a strange exception.

  The story

  Lilith, the heroine, starts the book having already hit rock bottom. There’s no sad midpoint event, no plot twist that breaks her at the fifty percent mark. She’s already broken when the story begins, and what we get is her living through the early stages of grief: feeling lost, broken, defeated, and confused. I really liked how open she was with her sadness. I’ve read books where sad things happen to characters, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one that spends this much time showing their pain.

  There’s also a lot of spice in this book, more than you’d expect for a protagonist this sad. But I think that’s part of the charm. Many people who feel deep sadness look for something to drown it in, and for Lilith it’s sex, and good for her.

  This is not a book you pick up for deep plot or heavy character development. The center is definitely the spice, and how sadness shows up differently in each character. But more than anything, it’s spice.

  What won’t work for everyone: this is not a slow burn, the plot moves relatively slowly, and there’s instalust, voyeurism, and topics of infidelity. If you’ve read reviews from people who didn’t love this book, the recurring complaints are too many sex scenes and the heroine’s sadness feeling like too much or too repetitive. So you’ve been warned. But coming from someone who does her best to avoid sad books, I still loved this book. It was weirdly addictive.

  One thing that genuinely bothered me: the author uses this weird narrative device where Lilith will suddenly tell you, mid-scene, what’s going to happen later in the story. Not as a thought, not as something she says to anyone. Just suddenly there, in the narration, spoiling her own story. Something like: “I didn’t know it at the time, but by the end of this tour everything would be different.” You’re fully in the moment and then she yanks you out of it. I hated that.

  The characters

  Cope (29yo), Michael and Pax (26yo), Random (25yo) and Derek (21yo). They’re all part of the same band. They’re all hot, all well-described, all have their own trauma or something to work through. None of them felt like copies of each other. You know how with a group like this there’s always one who seems more detestable and one who’s clearly the sweetheart? That’s here. Some stereotypes, but I liked them.

  As for Lilith (21yo), I think people who can’t read this as fiction are going to say the rockstars took advantage of someone in a vulnerable situation. I understand that. But I didn’t experience it that way, and I think you have to take this as fiction for it to work.

  “I’m a woman and I want sex, lots of it. And I want these men, all of them.”

  Final thoughts

  I didn’t expect to love this book. I’m someone who avoids sad stories, and this one starts in grief and stays close to it the whole way through. But somehow it worked for me.

  If you go in treating it like fiction and let it be what it is, there’s something genuinely addictive here. But if you’re going to read it imagining this happening in real life and question whether some rockstars took advantage of a vulnerable girl, you’re going to take the magic out of it. If you’re open to it, it might surprise you too.

  The author wasn’t kidding when she said “Don’t read it unless you like to ugly cry… and also unless you like threesomes, foursomes… and moresomes.”

  I didn’t cry, but Groupie does have a fair amount of angst and somehow I loved this book despite that.

  I usually avoid sad books like the plague. I don’t like crying, I don’t like sadness, I read The Fault in Our Stars and despite how beautiful and well-written it is, I didn’t enjoy it simply because it was a sad story. Groupie is a strange exception.

  The story

  Lilith, the heroine, starts the book having already hit rock bottom. There’s no sad midpoint event, no plot twist that breaks her at the fifty percent mark. She’s already broken when the story begins, and what we get is her living through the early stages of grief: feeling lost, broken, defeated, and confused. I really liked how open she was with her sadness. I’ve read books where sad things happen to characters, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one that spends this much time showing their pain.

  There’s also a lot of spice in this book, more than you’d expect for a protagonist this sad. But I think that’s part of the charm. Many people who feel deep sadness look for something to drown it in, and for Lilith it’s sex, and good for her.

  This is not a book you pick up for deep plot or heavy character development. The center is definitely the spice, and how sadness shows up differently in each character. But more than anything, it’s spice.

  What won’t work for everyone: this is not a slow burn, the plot moves relatively slowly, and there’s instalust, voyeurism, and topics of infidelity. If you’ve read reviews from people who didn’t love this book, the recurring complaints are too many sex scenes and the heroine’s sadness feeling like too much or too repetitive. So you’ve been warned. But coming from someone who does her best to avoid sad books, I still loved this book. It was weirdly addictive.

  One thing that genuinely bothered me: the author uses this weird narrative device where Lilith will suddenly tell you, mid-scene, what’s going to happen later in the story. Not as a thought, not as something she says to anyone. Just suddenly there, in the narration, spoiling her own story. Something like: “I didn’t know it at the time, but by the end of this tour everything would be different.” You’re fully in the moment and then she yanks you out of it. I hated that.

  The characters

  Cope (29yo), Michael and Pax (26yo), Random (25yo) and Derek (21yo). They’re all part of the same band. They’re all hot, all well-described, all have their own trauma or something to work through. None of them felt like copies of each other. You know how with a group like this there’s always one who seems more detestable and one who’s clearly the sweetheart? That’s here. Some stereotypes, but I liked them.

  As for Lilith (21yo), I think people who can’t read this as fiction are going to say the rockstars took advantage of someone in a vulnerable situation. I understand that. But I didn’t experience it that way, and I think you have to take this as fiction for it to work.

  “I’m a woman and I want sex, lots of it. And I want these men, all of them.”

  Final thoughts

  I didn’t expect to love this book. I’m someone who avoids sad stories, and this one starts in grief and stays close to it the whole way through. But somehow it worked for me.

  If you go in treating it like fiction and let it be what it is, there’s something genuinely addictive here. But if you’re going to read it imagining this happening in real life and question whether some rockstars took advantage of a vulnerable girl, you’re going to take the magic out of it. If you’re open to it, it might surprise you too.

Character & romance details

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