The Girl with Stars In Her Eyes (The Lillys #1) by Xio Axelrod

At a certain point, I didn't have any unread books on my Kindle, except for a very heavy non-fiction book that was stressing me out, so I used the "available now" feature on Libby to download The Girl with Stars In Her Eyes by Xio Axelrod, which gave me a seven-day loan period. Almost immediately after I downloaded it, three of my other Libby books came available (The Four Winds, One Last Stop, and The Road Trip), so now I have an abundance of fluff on my Kindle and things have returned to normal.  However, I had such a limited period of time with this book that I sat down on a Friday afternoon I had taken off work with it and just basically read it until I was done. 

This book is a combo of Seven Days in June and The Final Revival of Opal & Nev. Toni and Sebastian grow up together in a small town in Pennsylvania, plotting on how to get out of there together to become successful musicians. Seb leaves without Toni, but they meet years later outside a Philly studio. What's going to happen with these two? Can Toni forgive Seb for his past mistakes? Will their careers pull them in opposite directions?

Interesting characters: I have started a sentence here and erased it approximately a million times. Their characterizations rely on flashbacks and only Toni is really fleshed out. I've read the book and I still don't 100% understand why Seb left town when they were younger without talking to her first. Since we're mostly with Toni, I think she's more developed and nuanced and that makes her more interesting, but since it's almost the exact same set-up as Seven Days in June in terms of backstory and it was done better there, I'm going to have say this wasn't a homerun for me.

(There was a moment when a bartender in Nowhere, Pennsylvania asked if someone wanted water? beer? pop? and I was taken out of it because I KNOW that they do not use pop in Pennsylvania and if you do ask for pop you will get a patronizing "oh, that's such a cute backwater way of asking for soda" and you will want to punch someone, particularly if that someone says "yinz" and "breakfaxt." Ahem. This egregious use of the word pop appeared on page 148.  

Okay, I went and looked it up. Apparently Pennsylvania is split and in western PA, they use pop and in the east, they use soda. The second Google return actually says "only hicks from western PA use pop," so I guess it actually does fit the characterization of the town in the book.  I'm still leaving my complain here, though, because I guess I should be humbled on occasion on my own blog.)

Believable conflict: Sure. I mean, I'd be ticked if I were Toni. We had these plans and then he just bails and then he sees you years later and he's all "sorry, sweetie" as if a weak-ass apology is an explanation?!  I think this sort of miscommunication/lack of communication as teenagers is so common in romance novels because it is believable and realistic.  

(There's also a lot about being a woman, a black woman, in particular, in the music business. Again, I thought Opal & Nev dealt with that conflict a lot better than this book, but since the romantic storyline here was prioritized over the professional storyline, which is different from Opal & Nev, I'll give that a pass. I thought the scenes in which Toni was brushed aside because she wasn't an old white man were interesting and I could have used more of that.)

Emotional tension: Not really. It was clear from the first scene in which they were together what was going to happen. All this talk of a "non-fraternization policy" and attempts to keep it a secret that they knew each other in the past was a weak attempt at building tension.

Happily ever after: Sure, they're together, the band's had a win, and things are going to go well. Probably.  

This was a propulsive read and I wanted to keep turning the pages. It's exactly what I want from a romance novel, and even though it had some imperfections, it was the exact right kind of light reading I needed in a stressful time. 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:
"She's family." Seb was close to pleading.
"Chosen family can be as shitty as any real family," she replied, her emotions betrayed by the prominent curl of her accent around the words. (page 77)

So much truth is those words.

Even on a sunny autumn day, the light in Bordon appeared watered down. As if it had passed through a filter of misery and misanthropy. (page 143)

I drove through my hometown a few years ago and I couldn't believe how shabby and unhappy it looked. It made me sad for days.

Time hadn't only been kind to Seb, it had evidently fallen in love with him and wanted to have his babies. So unfair. (page 230)

Men age so gracefully. Even nature is sexist.

"Kinda suits you, though," Seb said, turning back to her.
"In what way?" 
One corner of his mouth tipped up. "Hard to figure out what's going on, but you can't stop staring."
Toni blinked slowly. "You come up with that line all on your own?" (page 288)

Kind of sweet, I think.