Blurb:
From subway…
Monday night. Wednesday morning. Friday lunchtime.
Holland Bakker plans her journeys to work around the times the handsome Irish musician, Calvin McLoughlin, plays his guitar in the 50th Street subway station. Lacking the nerve to actually talk to the gorgeous stranger, Holland is destined to admire him from a distance. Then a near tragedy causes her busker to come to her rescue, only to disappear when the police start asking questions.
To Broadway…
Keen to repay Calvin, Holland gets him an audition with her uncle, Broadway’s hottest musical director. When he aces the tryout, Calvin’s luck seems to have turned – until his reason for disappearing earlier becomes clear: he doesn’t gave a visa.
To happy ever after?
Impulsively, Holland offers to marry Calvin to keep him in New York, still hiding her infatuation. While Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway, their relationship evolves from awkward roommates to besotted lovers. Yet surrounded by theatre, what will it take for Holland and Calvin to realise that they both stopped pretending a long time ago?
Rating: 5/5 stars
Side Notes:
- Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary Romance
- Highly recommend for 15 years and above
- TW: Assault, Profanity, Sexually explicit scenes
- Romance Tropes: Strangers to lovers, fake dating, marriage of convenience
Book Quotes:
- “Maybe the reason I can’t write about fictional life is because I haven’t actually lived.”
- “I’ve had friends like that,” he says, “the ones you outgrow but keep anyway.”
- “I catch a flash of bare ass and find religion.”
- “There is a high that comes from live shows, a collective energy in a large group of people all gathered for one reason. The beat slices through the melodies and then drops; the crowd bounces and undulates like ripples of water.”
- “Will anything ever be permanent? What the hell am I doing with my life? I only get one shot at this, and right now, I’m finding my value only in being valuable to others. How do I find value for me?”
- “Do you have cats?” I blink. “Cats?” “I’m allergic.” “Oh.” I frown. This is really where his brain goes first? Mine went straight to bare skin and sex sounds. “No cats.”
- “I used to refer to her as social lubricant, but Robert made me promise to never use that phrase again.”
- “As I slip in, I wonder whether, in ten years, I’ll hear a riff or an opening chord to one of the songs and be transported back immediately to this time in my life. It makes the shadow thought follow—what will I feel when I think of these times? Will I think, Wow, those were the hardest days, trying to figure out who I was? Or will I think, Those days were so easy and free, with so little responsibility?”
- “I love to read, but whenever I pick up a novel that blows me away, I think, There’s no way I have something like that inside me. Is Jeff right? Am I unable to create anything because I see myself in a supporting role? Doomed to always be the friend, the daughter, the linchpin in everyone else’s story?”
- “The thing about this music is that if you just stand here and listen, you’ll never appreciate it. You’re supposed to be part of it—part of the party. I think that’s why I like it so much.”
- “When I get angry, I cry. It’s like the two wires cross in my emotional brain.”
- “This is a conversation. Holy shit, I’m having a conversation with the stranger I’ve had a crush on for months.”
- “But this…writing about how it feels to listen to music, to have found him–it almost feels like I’m writing a description of how my organs work together, what keeps me breathing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this before. ”
- “But I knew I wanted to be with him, and he wanted to be with me, too, and also knew what he wanted to do with his life. So, we compromised. He took the job in Des Moines, and it was my responsibility to get a job that would make enough money for what we needed, and that I enjoyed enough. I didn’t have to love it, but it didn’t matter whether I did, either, because I had him. I kept trying new things, too, and eventually discovered pottery. It’s fun, of course, but the most important part is that I didn’t feel like my job had to be my everything.” This is what I have to keep reminding myself. Sometimes a job can just be a job. We aren’t all going to win the rat race. “I know.”
- “I rarely admit this ambition anymore because it seems to always garner this exact reaction: an odd combination of surprised and impressed. And I can’t tell whether people respond this way because they like the idea that I want to do something difficult and creative, or because nobody looks at me and immediately thinks She’s got stories buried inside her.”
- “Ugh. Crushes are the worst, but in hindsight a crush from afar seems so much easier than this. I should stick to making up stories in my head and watching from a distance like a reasonable creeper. Now I’ve broken the fourth wall and if he’s as friendly as his eyes tell me he is, he may notice me when I drop money in his case the next time, and I will be forced to interact smoothly or run in the opposite direction. I may be middle-of-the-pack when my mouth is closed, but as soon as I start talking to men, Lulu calls me Appalland, for how appallingly unappealing I become. Obviously, she’s not wrong. And now I’m sweating under my pink wool coat, my face is melting, and I’m hit with an almost uncontrollable urge to hike my tights up to my armpits because they have slowly crept down beneath my skirt and are starting to feel like form-fitting harem pants.”
- “After the merch booth has closed, I join the melee, but am nudged to the middle of the mob, and then the back, where I stand on my toes to watch person after person embrace my husband. Jeff’s words from our pseudo-poker game rise to the surface of my consciousness and bob there, refusing to be silenced. This is the very definition of being a supporting character. But I don’t really mind that I’m this far away—I can still see the smile on his face as bright as a spotlight, and his joy seems to vibrate across the distance. Surely everyone knows what a big deal this must be to him, but I still look at him and remember the subway musician hunched over his guitar, sitting on a narrow stool, guitar case open at his feet. And now here he is, wearing a suit, standing beside Ramón Martín, and getting the praise and adoration of an entire cast and crew. I’m still on the sidelines, but I helped make that happen.”
- “Trust your muse…But what if I don’t have one? There’s a part of me that worries I don’t love to write enough to do it all day, my entire life…I think part of what’s keeping me from starting is the fear that I won’t actually love it, and then I’ll be left with a degree I won’t use, and no other prospects.”
- “I’ve had the thought almost without realizing it—the encroaching awareness that I feel settled but in truth can’t see my future at all. I have a temporary job, a temporary marriage. Will anything ever be permanent? What the hell am I going to do with my life? I only get one shot at this, and right now, I’m finding my value only in being valuable to others. How do I find value for me?
- “Calvin told me to do something with my brain, but how? Threads of ideas appear on the edge and are gone as soon as my fingers settle on the keys. There’s no connective tissue to string them together, no skeleton to hold them up. I want to live my life with the intensity I see on the stage up there, want to feel passionate about something in the same way. But what if it never happens for me?”
- “I have no idea what I want to do. I want to write and read and talk about books with people. I want to listen to music, go out to dinner and just live.” “That is a life,” he insists. “That is a good life.”
- “She sees herself as a supporting character, even in her own life story.”
- “Come home and kick me in the teeth if you need to, but then kiss me”
- “I’ve always been obsessed with words—so why can’t I seem to write a single one?”
- “If you can’t be good, at least be good at it.”
- “think part of what’s keeping me from starting is the fear that I won’t actually love it, and then I’ll be left with a degree I won’t use, and no other prospects.”