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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Amplified by Tara Kelly

Amplified by Tara Kelly
"When privileged 17-year-old Jasmine gets kicked out of her house, she takes what is left of her savings and flees to Santa Cruz to pursue her dream of becoming a musician. Jasmine finds the ideal room in an oceanfront house, but she needs to convince the three guys living there that she's the perfect roommate and lead guitarist for their band, C-Side. Too bad she has major stage fright and the cute bassist doesn't think a spoiled girl from over the hill can hack it. . . ."- summary from Amazon

This book was a godsend. I had had to put down a did-not-finish book (I won't mention it here but you can probably find it on my Goodreads profile) and was in a bad place, reading-wise. I had no idea what to read next but I have a schedule and now my blog was down one book. I chose between three books and while I probably would've enjoyed the other two, Amplified was simply perfect. I adored Kelly's debut Harmonic Feedback and was really excited to read this book, though I can't believe I put it off for so long!

It's a compelling contemporary read and Kelly does a fantastic job drawing the reader in and making the characters real so the reader gets invested in them. Jasmine is a great main character and I loved reading her story and understanding her passion for music. The prose, especially when Kelly writes the band rehearsal scenes, is poetic almost at times and has such a natural rhythm that I'd be surprised that I'd read 75 pages in a short amount of time.

The budding romance between Jasmine and Sean was really sweet to read about. They have a natural chemistry and I can see them as a couple. They each have their own issues to work through, some that take longer than others, and it felt like a realistic courtship, as it were. A character I also really enjoyed was Veta, the lead singer of C-Side, because she was just out there and funny and also extremely loyal. I'd love to have her as a friend. I also liked Jasmine's gay friend James (I really hope that's his name; too lazy to check) though we didn't see too much of him. Hopefully if there's a sequel (the ending is a bit open-ended, but it's done in the right way), we can see more of him once he's back from his trip.

Overall, I simply loved this book and I can't say enough good things about it. Please please please go buy a copy if you're at all into contemporary or even books about music, no matter the genre. You won't be disappointed.

FTC: Received ARC from publisher. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.

2 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you enjoyed this one since it's in my To Buy List but I hadn't read many reviews about it.

    :D
    I love the whole idea of it, and I'm so happy you found it so awesome :D
    I think I'm going to buy it after the holidays :D

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  2. I'm such a fan of Tara Kelly's writing. AMPLIFIED was different to HARMONIC FEEDBACK, but they're so linked in that they're written by an author who really knows her music. The characters were so fun to meet, and I loved that progression with Jasmine and Sean. *snaps fingers* THAT'S WHAT IT WAS! They had such chemistry together ~ it was almost swoonworthy, if I ever did swoon.

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