Play - Book Review

By Kylie Scott

Synopsis

Mal Ericson, drummer for the world famous rock band Stage Dive, needs to clean up his image fast-at least for a little while. Having a good girl on his arm should do the job just fine. Mal doesn’t plan on this temporary fix becoming permanent, but he didn’t count on finding the one right girl.

Anne Rollins never thought she’d ever meet the rock god who plastered her teenage bedroom walls-especially not under these circumstances. Anne has money problems. Big ones. But being paid to play the pretend girlfriend to a wild life-of-the-party drummer couldn’t end well. No matter how hot he is. Or could it?

Review

Anne is in deep shit. Having been screwed over by a supposed friend, she finds herself hung out to dry with a side serving of possible eviction. Invited to a Stage Dive party by Lauren (her neighbour and Evie’s BFF), she runs into her teenage crush, Mal. Overhearing about Anne’s predicament, Mal moves into her apartment the next day, offering to pay her rent and replace her furniture on one condition: she act as his pretend girlfriend for a little while. What kind of girl could possibly resist that offer? But when real feelings and sex become involved, the lines get blurred and confusion reigns.

I fell in love with Mal and his wicked sense of humour in LICK. He has that same sense of humour in PLAY, but there’s more to him than just Funny Mal. Jealousy, anger and depression are also there and he doesn’t handle those emotions very well. Now, there’s a very good reason for those emotions, but his moods switched so quickly I couldn’t help but think he was bipolar.

I really liked Mal and Anne as a couple as I thought they complimented each other perfectly. Anne taught him that it’s ok to open up and unload on someone once in a while, while Mal brought Anne back to life and taught her how to stand up for herself and her needs.

I had a feeling that after meeting Mal in LICK that his own book was going to be hilarious, and I was not disappointed. There are so many funny scenes throughout the entire book, and the banter between Mal and Anne was fantastic and so well written.

Anne: “God, you confuse me. I don’t think my head has stopped spinning since you walked in the door.”
Mal: You can be confused later. But come on my face now, please?”

The texting scene was beyond hilarious. And the fake sex scene? Seriously, if you’re not laughing when reading that scene, there’s something wrong with you.

Anne: “They’re mocking us.”
Mal: “Nonsense. We just fucked so hard we broke your bed. They wish they were us. The natural order of sexual status has been restored.”

Next book in the series is Jimmy’s LEAD, which is the precursor to the final book, DEEP. DEEP is being released March 31st, 2015 and I for one can’t wait.