Dirty Little Secret

Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols
ARC received from Jennifer
On Shelves Now
Reviewed by Middle Sis Jenn
The Sisters Say: Great setting with heartfelt characters, but slow with the plot line

I am a huge fan of Jennifer Echols books. I love how much life she brings into her characters, and I love that she doesn’t shy away from the darker side of some characters. Dirty Little Secret had an amazing setting and some amazingly broken characters; however, because the plot was very slow, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I have her other books.

I loved the setting—Nashville. The lights, the music, the energy was portrayed perfectly by Jennifer. I couldn’t get enough of the bar scenes and gigs that Bailey and Sam played. I felt like I was there and could hear the music pumping up the crowd. This was definitely the best part of the book. The description of the music and beat really brought the scenes to life.

The characters were hit and miss for me because they were so hot and cold. Sam was so sweet and great one minute, but the next he was a raging jerk. This doesn’t bother me too much usually, but I just felt like, while his temper could turn on and off, his feelings for Bailey shouldn’t. I wanted to see a more passionate, more truthful relationship emerge from them. Bailey just broke my heart. I hate the position her parents have put her in, and I understand that she got in lots of trouble in the past. However, that shouldn’t give her parents permission to treat her like she doesn’t exist. And furthermore, if they are going to treat her like she doesn’t exist, then they shouldn’t regulate what she can and can’t do. I wanted Bailey to give them the finger and just walk off! I had one of the most extreme angry reactions to her parents that I have ever had in any book.

As I said before, though, the plot was extremely slow. I was 120 pages in, and I felt like nothing had really happened. There was so much detail in the people that Bailey sees day to day that I felt like that’s all the book was at points. It definitely needed more action to keep me more interested. Perhaps if the romance was less broken, I would have had a better time with the progression.
While this wasn’t my favorite of Jennifer’s books, I still look forward to her next project. She is such an amazing writer, and even now, I find myself wanting to go back and re-read her past books. In fact, I just bought a hardback of Such A Rush—I think I might restart it today!

What I'd like to say to Dirty Little Secret is perfectly worded by Avril Lavigne, "Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?" I struggled with rating this book because frankly, where it lacked in depth in the first half, it definitely more than made up for it before the end. And that wasn't even an issue when I started reading the book.

The beginning of Dirty Little Secret was... boring. I honestly didn't care for Bailey dressing up and playing her fiddle in tribute groups. But then she meets Sam at the mall, plays with him and he zones in on her. Now Bailey has to make a difficult decision, would she risk being seen as the loser sister of a rising star at a gig or cast her eyes down and carry on? This is when I saw life in Bailey and I was finally into the story.

Bailey accepts the gig because let's face it, spending time at home playing the fiddle endlessly with her grandfather hovering, who wants that? She made a perfect rebel with bold fashion sense, asymmetrical hair, red lips and boots-to-die-for, but she couldn't go on with it. Same gave her the out and she took it.

But the infamously titled Sam Hardiman's band is trouble from the start. Oh who am I kidding, Charlotte is hate-worthy. Given that the drummer had a thing for Sam and is still okay with being not okay with whoever Sam dates. Because you see, Sam likes Bailey. But does he like her because she gives the oomph factor to the band or because she is talented?

Sam started out as a pretty normal guy and then he became persuasive as hell and who'd have guessed from that that he was pretty messed up from the inside. So while I was out admiring his ability to make everyone do what he wants to do, I was also in the state where I just wanted to quietly strangle him.

But then Sam said, "I like doing things that make me uncomfortable. I try not to have a comfort zone" and everything was perfectly clear. After going through a hard family life and counselling, you have to admire the guy. And Bailey does. Their conversation is beautiful and where Sam is trying to make up for the lack of channeling his emotions, Bailey is trying to get away from them by writing them down into songs.

I understood Bailey because even though she got treated horribly by her family, she didn't give up on them. And I understood Sam because he wanted to not be like his father and wind up a loser. So they perform gigs together, discover each other, fight and then it all ends (not necessarily in that order). It was a moment of holding-my-breath-reading where you don't know what'll happen and how it'll all go down. It is a difficult feat to achieve but I was going through it so Echols did achieve it.

Dirty Little Secret more than surprised me and made me feel despite the rocky start. People who like to read music-themed YA must read this. You'll smile, go argh, get shocked and definitely swoon.