Review: "Mia and the Bad Boy" by Lisa Burstein (Backstage Pass #2)
Note: This ARC was provided by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Ryder Brooks should be on top of the world, what with being part of the mega-successful boy band Seconds to Juliet and having everything he wants handed to him. But Ryder isn't gung-ho about the bubblegum pop that the group has to sing and even though the songs he writes have come from a deeper and darker place, the band's fans only hear what they want to, believing the songs have a sugary sweetness to them. So, Ryder's biding his time until his contract with the band is up and he'll hopefully be able to go solo and write and sing the songs that he wants to. But first, he needs to pass his GED so he can get into the Berklee College of Music and study and work on his chosen craft and be an honest-to-goodness musician.
Mia Reyes has been hired by Seconds to Juliet's manager, who just happens to be her mom's employer as well, to join the band's tour and tutor the resident bad boy that is Ryder Brooks. He may be her favorite S2J member but she's there to do a job, one that will ensure that all four years of her college education will be paid in full. When she meets him face-to-face, she quickly realizes that he's exactly as labeled: he's bad, obnoxious, and rude, and now he wants her to pretend to be his girlfriend so that people don't find out that she's actually he's tutor. Being in close quarters brings the two of them closer and they see sides of one another that they've kept long buried. But what happens when playing pretend becomes all too real?
Mia and the Bad Boy by Lisa Burstein is the second novel in the multi-authored Backstage Pass series from Entangled Publishing young adult (YA) arm, Entangled Crush. Ryder Brooks, Seconds to Juliet's very own bad boy, has a dream and wants to take the necessary steps in order to achieve that dream by hiring a private tutor to help him study for his GED. When he meets Mia Reyes, she isn't what he expects--she's a teenager and she looks studious, serious, and innocent, three things he's never been attracted to before but there's something about his beautiful tutor that makes him pay closer attention to her. On the other hand, Mia's celeb crush on Ryder falters when she realizes that he really is a bad boy, but there's also more to him than meets the eye. They both have their own secrets that they don't easily or readily divulge.
Ryder caught my attention in the first book, Aimee and the Heartthrob, which was written by Ophelia London and finding out more about him and the motivations behind the stuff he does made him all the more interesting. He reminds me of a former boy band member who recently quit the immensely successful group he was part of all of a sudden. Ah, the sobbing of fangirls everywhere was on the news, but soon enough, he announced his plans of going solo. I don't think the ambition of becoming a solo artist is limited to just boy bands so Ryder's tale is a familiar one, though I do like that he wanted to actually go to Berklee to study music, making him seem quite serious about pursuing life beyond bubblegum pop and the hordes of screaming fans that he was growing tired of. He was obviously a bad boy with good dreams.
Mia's predicament with her parents is one I'm sure a lot of teenagers and even adults can empathize with. It's not as if her parents are evil people; they simply want their daughter to have the best future possible, even if it does mean following a plan they came up with and without taking into consideration what Mia would have wanted. It's sad that a lot of those in older generations think that creative or artistic leanings aren't worthy of pursuing simply because they aren't as profitable as other fields. Mia was obviously passionate about writing lyrics and that made her being with Ryder sweeter because it was like he was the music to her lyrics. The chemistry between the two of them was definitely, though it seemed to be more subtle than you would expect in a romance between a seemingly ordinary girl and an extraordinary guy.
This book can be read as a standalone, but I do highly recommend that you read the its predecessor, Aimee and the Heartthrob by Ophelia London, since it is one of my favorite reads for 2015, and it does introduce readers to Seconds to Juliet as well as their less than trustworthy manager, Lester "LJ" Pearl, who brings to mind the Backstreet Boys's and *NSync's former manager and now convicted criminal, Louis Jay "Lou" Pearlman. I enjoyed Ryder and Mia's love story and I liked that readers get a bit more insight on the three other remaining S2J members who have yet to have their stories told: Will Frey, Trevin Jacobs, and Nathan Strong. This was a sweet read and I'd recommend it to anyone out there who's ever fantasized about being with their favorite boy band member. Lisa Burstein's Mia and the Bad Boy gets 4.5 stars. ♥
Release Date: 19 May 2015
Date Read: 12 May 2015
Learn more about Lisa Burstein here.
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