The Disenchantments - Nina LaCour

Young Adult
Pages: 304
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Release Date: February 16, 2012

Colby and Bev have a long-standing pact: graduate, hit the road with Bev's band, and then spend the year wandering around Europe. But moments after the tour kicks off, Bev makes a shocking announcement: she's abandoning their plans - and Colby - to start college in the fall.
But the show must go on and The Disenchantments weave through the Pacific Northwest, playing in small towns and dingy venues, while roadie- Colby struggles to deal with Bev's already-growing distance and the most important question of all: what's next?
Morris Award—finalist Nina LaCour draws together the beauty and influences of music and art to brilliantly capture a group of friends on the brink of the rest of their lives.

So unusual and original. A very different take on epic/life-changing road trips. A wonderful journey, though: deep and heart-felt and hopeful. There's something wonderful about authors who can write contemporary so amazingly realistic, and yet very original. I loved the premise of this. A girl band? Going on tour? Even though they totally suck? And told through the fresh and yummy point of view of their friend-who-is-a-boy?

I admit that at first I felt it was kind of slow and not very gripping, but I loved the writing from the very first sentence. The fact is that the premise makes it wrongly seem like it will be simply a fun book. And it's more than just a fun book, it has depth and emotions. I've mentioned before how I love male PoV, specially when it involves a weird bad girl, a la Looking For Alaska.

The biggest bump I found was trying to match the Beverly in the book with the one Colby is in love with. It's a story about endings, and facing the future. So Colby and Beverly's friendship we glimpsed through memories. During the whole book Beverly is cold and distant, and yet, I guess the writing was just good enough to make me feel there had been that special friendship. And one of the things I loved the most was Colby's relationships with the other girls in the band, Meg and Alexa. He was just so awesome. Loved his character!

At some point I was just so involved and having so much fun, and just wrapped up so much in this awesome idea of a road trip for a tour even though you couldn't be less famous (or talented for that matter), that I was just eager to read the whole thing. And the ending was so great and magical and unexpected that I ended up overseeing all my previous "bumps" with the story.

I haven't read Hold Still, but if it's anything like The Disenchantments, I'm sure I'll love it too.

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