Amplified by Tara Kelly

Title: Amplified

Author: Tara Kelly

Release Date: 25th October 2011

My Rating: 4/5

Blurb: 

When privileged 17-year-old Jasmine gets kicked out of her house, she takes what is left of her savings and flees to Santa Cruz to pursue her dream of becoming a musician. Jasmine finds the ideal room in an oceanfront house, but she needs to convince the three guys living there that she's the perfect roommate and lead guitarist for their band, C-Side. Too bad she has major stage fright and the cute bassist doesn't think a spoiled girl from over the hill can hack it.

In A Nutshell:

Amplified was a quick, easy read and while predictable in parts, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked Jasmine. She's on a mission to follow her dreams and leave no regrets. The C-Side band members are a great mix and I love how they all just get lost in the music while playing. Music + cute boys = swoon. 

My Review:

Amplified was a quick, easy read and while predictable in parts, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s one of those lazy day comfort reads: Cute boy? Check. Introverted girl eager to prove herself? Check. Music themed? Check. Awesome share house where fun is to be had? Check.

Jasmine is rather shy and introverted, a girl essentially brought up by nannies and although her father has always provided for her, it’s never been in the kind of loving, understanding manner that Jasmine needed. To him, life is about success and creating a future and while Jasmine has played the perfect daughter and student, even getting into Stanford, the future she wants to create doesn’t quite match up to the one her father has envisioned.

Amplified is about taking a leap to follow your dreams, even if it means doing so without any support and with your only family telling you it is the biggest mistake of your life. Sometimes you have to believe in yourself, at least to know you have tried everything and have no regrets.

I loved the dynamic of the C-Side band members. The banter and teasing between over-the-top control freak Bryn, cool and quirky Felix, the loyal and dripping in sass Veta, and Sean, my new book crush, just made for an entertaining read. Throw in a secretive Jasmine and the drama levels in the band and the share house rise. For Jasmine, things become a little more complicated than they already are when she falls for Sean, who is currently coming out of an ugly breakup. His heavily tattooed ex-girlfriend takes an instant dislike to Jasmine and makes her difficult stage debut even harder than it could have been.

I would have liked there to be a little more about Veta and Bryn’s siblings, Zoe and Nick respectively, since they are introduced into the storyline. The same goes for Jason, Jasmine’s bestie. I have discovered there will be a sequel titled Encore to be release sometime in 2014 so maybe they’ll make an appearance.

I’m a big fan of music/band themed books so if you are too, maybe check out one of my favourites, Five Flavours of Dumb or the books tagged with 'music'.