If Not For My Baby by Kate Golden

TL;DR: Absolutely not, no thank you. Yikes.
Source: NetGalley – Thank you to the publisher!!

Plot: An ordinary girl gets picked by plot devices to sing backup for a Hozier fan creation.
Characters: I couldn’t stand our female MC and Halloran was just Hozier.
Setting: Very little setting was here except the bus, which I did like.
Romance: No. I hated this, sorry.

Summary:

It’s the duet of a lifetime when a rock star and his backup singer find a new kind of harmony off stage in this sensational contemporary romance.

Clementine Clark isn’t looking for love. Growing up with a single mom who weeps over a new guy each week tends to have that effect on a girl. But Clementine doesn’t mind being the rational one—she’s even buried her musical dreams so deeply within herself that she hardly notices the hole it’s left in her life.

That is until her best friend calls her with a life-changing opportunity: to join Irish megastar Halloran on his first US tour as a backing vocalist. Clementine wants to reject the offer, but the pay is enough to change her and her mom’s life. Overnight, Clementine goes from serving enchiladas at the Happy Tortilla to belting high notes before a cheering crowd.

But the whiplash of trading small-town Texas for sold-out stadiums is nothing compared to the rush of performing with the enigmatic Thomas Patrick Halloran. Poet, introvert, and lyrical genius, Halloran quickly gets under Clementine’s skin. The two couldn’t see the world more differently. And yet, over the course of the next eight weeks on tour, the romantic rockstar might just strike an unforgettable chord in Clementine. But will it be enough for an encore?

Thoughts:

I am going to try and keep this short. I dislike everything about the idea behind this. It’s based on Real Person Fanfiction which I find invasive and gross. It’s made almost worse by the fact that the real person in particular is so private, it feels like such a big overstep of boundaries. As fans or even just people on the internet we really need to learn where the boundaries of parasocial are. This steps over those boundaries, even the ones that I feel the artist himself as set.

There could be an argument made for ‘Oh you don’t have to see the fanfiction of it! Just enjoy it for what it is now’. This book does not stand on it’s own without the Hozier knowledge in my opinion. If you even know the basics (which is all I know) about the artist you can see it immediately. From his appearance, to his origins, to the music, and his accent. If you remove any pervious knowledge the romance feels flat and instant. Our main female character is a mess. She doesn’t believe in love, and yet she sees the love and beauty in his lyrics. She is dragging her best friend with benefits along, refusing to see his obvious adoration and abusing that relationship. And poor Halloran/Hozier has so little personality he sees that and thinks “Oh that’s not a red flag”. If we saw a male character do that, we’d be screaming red flag.

While I’m sure this author can write good books, her romantasy series is on my TBR, I this was NOT it. This felt deeply gross, invasive and I disliked it so much. Please for the love of god, let’s stop publishing these obvious fanfictions? I don’t mind if I can’t see the source material! Do better and be better guys. Come on now.