Drumline || Book Review

Title: Drumline

Author: Stacy Kestwick

Publication Date: September 5, 2017

Publisher: Self-published
Links: Goodreads || Amazon || Barnes & Noble 

Ari's Rating: ★★

Britt's Rating:★½

Synopsis via Goodreads: Traditions are important. Especially in the South. 
College football. Rivalries. Tailgating. Halftime shows.
Some things just don’t change.
Until Reese Holland shows up with her long legs and no-bullshit attitude to audition for the prestigious all-male Rodner University snare line.
It doesn’t matter how much hazing she has to endure from Laird Bronson, with his narrowed green eyes and arrogant smirk. She wants that damn spot, and she’s more than good enough to earn it.
She expects there to be tension. Even friction.
But not sparks hot enough to burn the entire campus down.

LOOK WHO'S TEAMING UP TO DRAG YO FAVE

ARI: Drumline initially caught my eye while scrolling through Instagram. I saw the cover and then the title and immediately thought of one of my favorite movies, a movie that so just so happens to have the same title as this book. Y'all remember Drumline the movie, right? 2002? Nick Cannon was looking like a lil wannabe badass with his snare drum? Well, it was one of my favorite movies back in the day and my band teacher would make us watch it when we were acting up to get us in line. My point to all this reminiscing is that because I was a band geek and grew up seeing my school's drumline in action, I had certain expectations when it came to this new release. Let's see if the Rodner University snare line's reputation was really worth the hype. 

BRITT: So, picture this. You're scrolling down your Goodreads timeline one day and see some seriously epic abs attached to a pretty interesting synopsis. You click to check out some more and then go about your business. Then the next day and the next day you keep seeing said book and low and behold people are starting to compare it to your fave college NA ever, The Deal. Naturally you wait for the book to be released and once you see it's on KU, you get super hype and plan to buddy read it with your co-blogger. Now imagine this the book starts out pretty decent, y'all are already starting to love some characters, but before you even get to 12% it turns into a big ass, hot ass mess, and you and your blogging boo are disappointed AF!!

ARI: The premise for Drumline sounded really promising. Reese Holland is a freshman at Rodner Univeristy and she's hoping to land a spot on the university's all-male snare line. Rodner's snare line has the reputation for being the best snare line in all of Alabama so making the cut will be no easy task. But Reese is willing to work for it and she won't let anything get in her way, not even her feelings for the line's captain, Laird Bronson. This totally sounded like my type of book! A badass female lead determined to prove that she is just as good as one of the guys. A fine ass male lead who definitely knew how to tap that snare drum. Some musical elements which I'm such a total sucker for. What's not to like? I'll admit, me and this book were totally vibing at the beginning and I couldn't put it down. Then I reached the 20% mark and things went downhill from there. It all become a load of bullshit and fuckery and I wanted to pull my hair out. *cue the eye rolling*

BRITT: When I first started Drumline I was so ready to be amazed. I mean everybody on Goodreads was raving about it, and I tend to trust and believe hype on Goodreads than bookstagram for many reasons. I've had a lot of faves come out of Goodreads hype and it's so I'm always sad when a flop comes through because I never have a lot of them. And after seeing it being compared to one of my all time favorite NA college books I just knew it had to be good, but nah, wasn't even close!! In the beginning the book was pretty strong, I have to give it that. I was so interested in continuing and seeing how everything would pan out, I liked Reese because she was so headstrong and was going after something that was very male dominated, the side characters were introduced and I felt like they would add some good depth to the story, and Laird was...aight. But bitch did it all start to fall apart for me at like 10-15%!!

ARI: The first thing I hated about this book: Laird Bronson. The amount of times Laird brought up the fact that he had no problem getting laid was so nauseating. I don't care if Laird makes all the panties drop, he's a creep. The dude has no understanding of personal space and doesn't take no for answer. The first two times he "brushed up against Reese's boob", I didn't really give much thought to it. But then it became a constant thing. He was always trying to rub up on Reese every time they were together, humping her damn leg like a dog with a bone. I would even go as far to say that Laird is a bit "too obsessed" with Reese. At one point during the story, he goes off on her because he doesn't know where she is and claims that "he was lost without her". Mind you they've only known each other for two weeks, give me a fucking break with that dramatic dialogue. Then we have Reese, who was much more tolerable that Laird, but she wasn't any better. She may have started out as a badass, but then she let her feelings blind her and she gave into every one of Laird's demands. Where yo backbone at, Reese?! The relationship itself is classic insta-lust-at-first-sight. If these two aren't fighting, they're fucking and if they're not fucking, they're fighting. It was a never ending cycle and I ended up skimming over most of the sex scenes since they were so repetitive. Gosh, I couldn't stand these two. 

BRITT: Like Ari, I also came to hate Laird's ass!! I'm sorry to everyone who loved him and liked him, no offense to y'all but that dude turned into a grade A stalker, creep, and obsessed ass character. Every quality that he had as a character that I usually like in male characters pissed me tf off with him!! Within their first few times meeting he was already claiming ownership on Reese, he was possessive in his head, and the shit he thought of was downright creepy to me, if this was a simple erotica I wouldn't mind because it comes with that territory, but in a contemporary NA? Nope. I mean homeboy was tryna own the cat before they even held hands!! Where they do that at?? 

And I was pushing through at first because was this boss tough ass girl that didn't take no shit so I just knew she would put his ass in line, and she did for like the first 4 chapters until she turned into some dickmatized little girl and she hadn't even touched, looked at, or had the D yet!? Like, really?? 

 Our badass turned into an annoying character that I wanted to slap multiple times for her actions. There were so many other things going on with her that she needed to address. THE GIRL WAS BEING SEVERELY HARASSED BY ANOTHER TEAM MEMBER FOR FUCKS SAKE!! What I though would be some simple pranks played by everyone turned into a disturbing case of hazing and bullying real fucking quick. And I get that Reese wanted to handle her own and not get any special treatment, and I respected her for that, but c'mon. I think that she should've told someone what the hell was going on with her, the situation escalated quick af, and for all she knows the person in question could've started going after other team members besides herself. She was boning the captain, she should've spoken up regardless, for her safety, and the safety of others. Pull your lips off Laird for .5 seconds and speak tf up!! 

Another thing that turned me all the way off was the damn insta-lust-fuck-love, whatever the hell it was. It completely ruined the damn story man, they never had to even know each others last names, or any other relevant info before he was admitting his love and they fell all in whatever with each other. And Laird came off so damn pushy and shit to me that it felt like he was pushing her feelings to match his. I wanted them to get to know each other so much more before the damn relationship. That's what I love about romance books so much, seeing the love form, develop, and grow over time, they didn't have to be bff's forever before getting together, but shit, they could've at least had a more naturally formed relationship. And the sex scenes in this were so cringe, and usually when you don't like a book you can at least look forward to some good sexy times, nope, not in here. The things said and done just came off so weirdly awkward to me, I was tired of reading about homegirl's hard nipples, I was tired of him and the raging hard ons he had to hide when they came at inappropriate times, I was over that and it wasn't even remotely sexy tbh. 

And one thing I noticed was that Laird was supposed to come off as this dominate man in the bedroom that talked dirty and could command Reese with any tone of voice wherever they were and turn her on all the time, and any other time he was supposed to be this sweet gentle giant. Well it didn't work for me at all, and it read like he had an identity crisis. It made his character and the writing even more disjointed than they were.

ARI: Then we have our secondary characters. I absolutely hated the antagonist. Marco is a bully. An egotistical asswipe who used his powers as second in command to get people to do what he wanted. I honestly felt sorry for Reese because she definitely didn't deserve what Marco did to her. Marco deserved worse than he got and I was disappointed with how some things were handled. But I didn't hate all the secondary characters. I totally adored Smith and Eli! Eli was so freakin' adorable, you can't help but love him. Smith is the only one with common sense in this book and Reese was lucky to have him as a friend. I would ask for Smith to get his own book but I don't want his character to be ruined with a sub par romance. *sips tea*

BRITT: Marco needed to go choke, or take a nasty fall, or both tbh, I don't give af. He was a bitch ass coward who got off waaayyyyyy to easily and never really had to own up and face the consequences for his shitty actions. I would've liked to see him get what was really coming for him, because he deserved it and Reese deserved to see him get his karma, more than what was given to him. I really liked Smith, and he was the only one with some damn common sense in this book. We needed more of him and he deserved to be treated better too. Eli was the other saving grace of this book, the kid was adorable and wise beyond his years (unlike the two people who should've had the sense but whatevs, moving on).
 

ARI: Needless to say, Drumline was not a hit with me. I'm high key pissed that this book shares the same title as one of my favorite movies and would probably recommend the movie over the book! Honestly, if I didn't buddy-read this book with Britt, I probably would've DNF-ed it. I wish I could unread this mess of a book or at least gain back the hours I spent reading it because it so was not worth it. 

BRITT: I was honestly gonna DNF this book at like 20% but Ari begged me to stick it out with her, I think deep down we were both hoping and wishing that things would turn around and get better so we could get into the hype party, but sadly it was a big flop for us both. I was HIGHLY disappointed that the book didn't work for me because going in I really did want to enjoy it, but hey, you win some and you lose some. (And remember just because something doesn't work for us, it doesn't mean you guys won't or can't enjoy it. Also remember that when we drag a book it's not meant to be taken personally if you enjoyed the book we're talking about, and dragging a book is never meant to be taken as any kind of disrespect towards the author). Hopefully our next buddy read goes better!!

Until next time y'all!!

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