Drummer Girl by Ginger Scott

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Title: Drummer Girl
Author: Ginger Scott
Published by: Indie
Release Date: July 28th 2019
Format: eARC
Pages: 280
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult, Coming of Age
Source: the author
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Diversity Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2019 New Release Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Arizona Wakefield was a beat without a melody. Living a half-breathing life in a half-finished neighborhood with parents who always wore half-hearted smiles, the high school senior only had one thing that let her color outside her family’s perfectly drawn lines—her drums.

Jesse Barringer was a song without a chorus. The son of a washed-up rock star who’s also one hell of a deadbeat dad, he was given two things from his father—musical genius and a genetic link to the bipolar disorder that drives him mad.

One night in a garage at the end of a cul-de-sac in the middle of a bankrupt California neighborhood, Jesse’s melody found Arizona’s rhythm. An angry boy with storm-colored eyes found a blonde angel in Doc Martens with missing lines in her own story. Where her rhythm stopped, his words took over, and together, they wrote one hell of a story.

** Drummer Girl is a mature YA/New Adult romance that touches on mental health, drug abuse and includes mature sexual situations.

My Review:

I received a free copy through the author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

4.5 stars — Dudes, I kept avoiding reading this book and missed release day because I just knew I wasn’t in the right mode for it.  Ms. Scott writes very real books, and I have to be in a certain frame of mind to really appreciate that.  And honestly?  I still wasn’t quite in the right frame of mind…but I was feeling tremendous guilt and I had wanted to get it in as an August read for my Diversity Challenge.  The funny thing is, when I was reading I was fairly sucked in and remembering why I love the way Ms. Scott writes.  But whenever I was forced to put it down, it would take so much effort to pick it up and keep reading.  It’s like I had a mental block, and I was afraid for how the story was going to go.  And mostly, those fears were unfounded.  *rolls eyes at self*

Arizona was a pretty solid heroine.  She’s not my fave of Ms. Scott’s, but I appreciated her rather even keelness given everything that she was experiencing.  She was a little bit insecure, but not so much that it overwhelmed her personality.  She was dealing with some crazy stuff in her past, but it never went over the top.  She made me feel so much as she made discoveries about herself and her family, and I loved how real her experience with mental health was.  Where it was there, but it wasn’t always in the forefront of her life.  It was an interesting perspective.  But the part that made her stand out to me was her complete confidence and passion for the drums.  I may have played percussion in my youth, but it wasn’t like it was for her.  I always admire talented people who just live music like that.  And while my high school band experience was quite different, it still gave me great nostalgia reading about hers.

My feelings for Jesse are a little more scattered.  It was not initial love for me.  I find that Ms. Scott writes two very different kinds of heroes, and the cocky arrogant asses are not the ones I gravitate towards.  They’re always damaged, but that’s never enough for me to gravitate towards them.  And Jesse starts out that way, big time.  I never understand what the heroines see in these heroes, and thus the books never end up being faves.  The interesting thing about Jesse is that he ended up being a lot more nuanced than the jerk heroes I’m used to.  I’m sure the others are as well, just not in ways that I connect with.  But Jesse surprised me.  I appreciated understanding his mental health struggles, and getting examples of what that might look like day to day, as well as in the past.  As someone who knows someone with bipolar manic depression, I could actually recognize some of his behavior.  Basically, I was impressed.  And like Arizona, I was totally pulled in by his passion and talent for music.  I loved *the* song.  It made my heart hurt in the best ways.

The romance between Arizona and Jesse also took me by surprise.  I wasn’t initially on board, but I got there eventually.  I expected some cliches, but I got something entirely different.  It was definitely steamier than I was expecting…but it fit with them.  What got me was the sweetness.  I didn’t expect the little moments they had together where they got each other.  I loved that.

Some great secondary characters in this one too.  Rag was 100% my favourite, and I loved the way he was there for his cousin (and for Ari).  Sam was an interesting best friend, and I didn’t connect with her as much, but I appreciated how real her friendship with Ari was.  The parents were also really intriguing, and added something to the story.  Definitely not perfect by any means, but a lot of depth and dimension there.

The ending felt a wee bit corny to me at times, but at other times I LOVED it.  And some parts surprised the crap out of me!  But not in a bad way.

I initially rated this book at 4 stars, but writing this review made me realize all the parts that I enjoyed, so I’m gonna bump it up a wee bit.  I always appreciate when an author can take a character type that I don’t gravitate towards and make me love them anyways.