Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Ava is going home. Well, it’s where her parents live, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. When Ava’s grandmother has to move into an assisted living facility, Ava goes to visit for the first time in a couple of years. Ava’s parents never really got her and don’t understand that being a drummer is actually a job. Ava loves being a drummer and her band Escaping Indigo is finally making a name for themselves and it’s where she belongs. The band members all get along great, but Ava fell in love with her bandmate Tuck and never told him. Since Tuck has a girlfriend now, Ava knows that a short break may be just what she needs.
On the plane, Ava meets Cara and there is that something that makes Ava unable to take her eyes off her. A chance second meeting has them connecting again, but Ava knows she’s only in town for a short time and her feelings are still with a certain band member. But Cara may be exactly what Ava needs, although living on opposite sides of the country poses a hindrance and Ava isn’t sure she’s ready to make the changes she needs to be happy.
While Skin Hunger follows the first book in this series, Escaping Indigo, it can be read as a standalone. The guys in the band are mentioned, but Ava is not with them during the course of the book and so this one works fine on its own.
This is solely Ava’s story. She is the first person narrator and she’s got a lot of stuff to figure out. She loves being a drummer and she loves her band and it’s where she feels she fits. But her parents were always disappointed in her and their relationship is strained. She also never had that close of a relationship with her grandmother, but there is enough there for Ava to journey home.
I liked the writing here and I liked Ava. The writing is soft and quiet and there is a lot of introspection on her part. The book had great potential, but there were many areas where I needed more. Ava is navigating her relationship with her parents, her grandmother, and then her relationship with Tuck. She’s been in love with Tuck for years and they are the best of friends, but she’s never told Tuck how she feels and knows he doesn’t feel the same. Her feelings for Tuck currently overshadow everything and it’s messing her up. The issue I had here is that the relationship between Tuck and Ava is completely off page and we are only told of their friendship and their connection. They text during the book, but for as important as this aspect was to the story, there was still a disconnect to their relationship for me.
The book had romantic overtones with Ava wanting to date Cara, but Ava is the only MC in this book and Cara was on the sidelines. When Ava and Cara meet, there is great chemistry between the two of them, but we learn only the basics about Cara and the end of the book is only a shaky beginning for the two of them. Ava knows who she wants to be, but she can’t quite let herself be it because her family disapproves. The storyline involving her family did not feel finished for me, especially the storyline with her grandmother.
In the end it was an interesting journey for Ava. As a romance, I was looking for more depth as well as a more finished feel to all of the storylines. Ava is still is a work in progress and that carried through at the end of the book. There is a third book in this series that is scheduled to release in a few months and goes back to the other band members once again. If that book could offer more depth, I would certainly add it to my schedule.
