Review of Handmaidens of Rock
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- Christabel Uzoamaka
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Review of Handmaidens of Rock
Candy never imagined herself to be a rock-and-roll fan. With protective parents who monitored her every move, she would never have gotten a chance to hang out with a Bly High School bad boy, Preston, who usually flunked class and played in a band. But on the night of the school dance, Candy’s whole world pivoted, and she fell harder in love with Preston than she ever thought possible.
Typical of rock-and-roll band boys with big dreams, Preston and the rest of his bandmates were high on the euphoria of their high school stardom and could not be pinned down by any girls. But fate had other ideas. Soon off to college, three girls from Bly High, Candy, Theda, and Hope, will have to rediscover themselves as they pair up with the audacious Homegrown band members: Preston, Clive, and Neal. Their adventures across Europe down to California in search of fame and acclaim will force them to grow through tragedies they did not think were possible.
Handmaidens of Rock by Linda Gould is a coming-of-age tale of teenagers as they attempt to find themselves through the haze of popularity, drugs, the Vietnam War, the hippie movement of the era, radicalism, and pure romance, and it was enticing to follow Candy’s story right from high school. When I first saw her book entry, I held my breath as I wondered if this was another book with the female heroine falling hopelessly in love and forgetting how to act. But Linda Gould had so much more in mind. Soon enough, she introduced us to Theda and Hope, both with their unique attitudes and decisions. I found the characters of the three heroines to be delightfully contrasting, an attribute that spurred me to want to read more of them.
Character development is another aspect that deserves an honorable mention. Readers meet Candy, Preston, Theda, Clive, Hope, and Neal as wide-eyed teenagers with their different varieties of naiveté, but progressing into the book, we soon find them grappling with missed opportunities, marriage, birth, terrorism, and even death. There is a wide range of emotions for readers to familiarize themselves with, and Linda Gould writes in such a fluid way that makes it all well worth the ride, especially for readers who enjoy coming-of-age stories with a rock-and-roll twist.
Her simple sentences, laced with vivid metaphors and imagery, make it easy for readers to envision the characters and feel something, no matter how small, for them. The final tragedy she included at the end was the icing on the well-made cake that was the entire book. Then she perfectly tied it all up with an epilogue that was a cherry on top. The epilogue served as the perfect inclusion for romantic readers who, like me, have no patience for loose ends. I found nothing to dislike about this book, so I rate it 5 out of 5.
Some readers may be sensitive and not particularly enjoy the time setting of the book: the hippie era of the Vietnam War period, when there were endless debates about radical change and whether there should be a war at all. But if you keep an open mind and look past the mention of drugs, psychedelic topics, and radicalism, you will see the beauty of flawed youths just trying to find their way in an unprecedented, flawed society, which I thought was a romantic idea.
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Handmaidens of Rock
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