Mockstars

This story of a band's early days is not very rock and roll. It's a good story though. Nothing goes right for them but they bumble along.

Light-hearted insight into the life of an aspiring musician and his band. This is semi-autobiographical, and that shines through with every crazy chapter. There's a wonderful sense of connection with the author, and I'm wondering just how little he had to embellish things.
Really enjoyed the tour!

An engrossing and enjoyable story of a rock band that made me smile and kept me hooked till the end.
I liked the style of writing and appreciated the characters and the descriptions of the rock world.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Mockstars is the fictionalised account of the origins of a real-life English Indy pop band called The Lightyears, written by the keyboard player. It was originally published in 2014 but is being rereleased this month. It wasn’t quite as funny as the blurb led me to expect but it was an easy feelgood read on a rainy day that had me wishing we could still go to concerts...

Set in the mid-2000s, this has nice middle-class Berkshire boys George, the guitarist, and Christoph the narrator, who’ve been in a band together since their early teens, beginning their music career playing dingy London clubs.
They manage to poach a talented drummer from a rival band, and talk George’s younger brother away from his university studies to play bass. Next thing they know they’re on a European tour - well, a series of pubs in a French ski resort, trying to live up to rock & roll cliches as well as pay the bills...

This was a light-hearted look at life in a band, and I’ve no doubt some of their escapades were real. I hadn’t heard of them, it’s not really my kind of music although after finishing it I looked them up online and (spoiler alert) it was nice to see they did make it. I’m not a fan of first person present narration but Chris has an engaging very self-deprecating style and there were plenty of amusing moments. 3.5 rounded up for not taking himself too seriously.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC which allowed me to give an honest review.

This is a great book, even if our hero is a bit of an idiot at times. The other characters could have been a bit more fleshed out, but the story was well written and appealing even to someone not that bothered by the music industry.