Publication Date: Out now!!!
Formats: Paperback & Ebook
Price: £7.99
Publisher: Lark
I would like to say a huge thank you to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for organising this fascinating and moving book’s tour. I would also like to thank Lark (the publishers) and Netgalley for allowing me access to review the digital copy of this book, and I would also like to say thank you to the author Lucy Nichol for highlighting Mental health especially when it comes to stars and the ripple effect of a musician’s death can have on everyone. So what’s this book all about I hear you say? lets head over to the blurb and find out.
It’s 1994. The music industry is mourning Kurt Cobain, Right Said Fred have re-emerged as an ‘ironic’ pop act and John Major is the country’s prime minister. Nothing is as it should be.
Emma, a working-class rock music fan from Hull, with a penchant for a flaming Drambuie and a line of coke with her best mate Dave down The Angel, is troubled.
Trev, her beloved whippet, has doggy IBS, and her job ordering bathroom supplies at the local caravan company is far from challenging. So when her dad, Tel, informs her that Kurt Cobain has killed himself aged 27, Emma is consumed with anxiety.
Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix….why have so many rock musicians died aged 27? and will Emma be next to join The Twenty Seven Club?
Ok where do I start with this intriguing and fascinating book, at the beginning I hear you shout, well of course, but I do have to say a few words before we find out what I thought of this book. Just a warning this book is extremely expletive throughout the book and some of the content is pretty descriptive, just a warning. I also have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of that language within the book (sorry if that makes me sound like a prim and nervous woman, I am not I don’t mind swearing where its needed because I am not a saint lol, but when its in nearly every paragraph…. I kind of feel thats a bit much).
Having said all of that I did get into the story (once I ignored the swearing) and found myself hooked into Emma’s life, for me this was not walking down memory lane, which I thought it would be, this shone a bleak and painful light on people who were trying to scrape a living during the 90’s in Hull of all places, and one in which as a young child I never knew and never came into contact with. I do now, sympathise and empathise with the main character’s anxiety of having reached a certain age where many famous stars, musicians especially, had either died or passed before they reached 30, due to drugs, drinking problems and within that mixture the pressure of being famous and yes being clinically depressed. For so many fans in the 90’s it was the death of Kurt Cobain that really made everyone gasp with shock and horror and probably made people like Emma stop and think about their life and choices. When I turned 27, I also felt a moment of sadness and guilt at having lived more years than Amy Winehouse, another musician who lost her life at a young age, and having that endless question which will never be answered of why? I felt the same again when I heard Chester Bedingfield (of Linkin Park) and Avicii also too their own lives, for me these our my childhood and also adult music heroes/idols which shocked and devastated my world.
Knowing these people who you look up to as immortal, godlike human beings, suddenly and tragically die, makes you question your own mortality and also leaves you feeling more fragile and lost. Because in your mind deep down in the depths a voice will say ‘well if they have gone, why don’t you follow’. This is what this book delves into and brings to the light and also what Emma herself battles to overcome and try to make sense of. This book deals with Mental Health brilliantly especially anxiety and panic attacks ( I know medically they are different but with my own experience I get anxious.. which builds and builds and then develops into a full blown panic attack, that is if I don’t get to deal with it before it escalates).
Its not just about the bad times either, there are some rather chaotic, rocking jams, parties that make you want to crank up the volume and just party (yes like its 1999). If you remember what is like back in the 90’s this book is definitely one for you and will also take you right back there. I did grow to love this one, its definitely a slow burner, and one that has a fascinating and intriguing question how do you find yourself when you are lost? and will anyone be there to help? and also like the song why do the good die young?
Ratings: 4 ⭐️s with a large ☕️ and a large 🍰 whilst listening to 90s rock on your phone.
Authors Blurb:
Lucy Nichol is a mental health campaigner and PR consultant, and a former columnist with Sarah Millican’s Standard Issue magazine. She has written for The Independent, The I Paper, NME, Red Magazine, Den of Geek, Men’s Fitness, Metro, and Huff Post. Her first book, A Series of Unfortunate Stereotypes, a non-fiction mental health memoir, was published by Trigger in 2018. Lucy has worked with the media in PR and marketing for almost 20 years and has experienced Generalised Anxiety Disorder for even longer.
I hope you have enjoyed this intriguing and fascinating journey back to the 90’s and one tragic death that shocked, traumatised and shaped the lives of teenagers around the world and even to this day. If you are intrigued by this book please please please go out and buy this now on Amazon and I think Waterstones too. I will leave you now to say Happy Reading and see you all soon!!!
Zoe's Book Nook 