Book Review: DJ Rising by Love Maia

Title: DJ Rising
Author: Love Maia
Pages: 301
Publication: February 6, 2012
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Summary taken from goodeads: 

The first thing I hear is music. The first thing I've always heard is music. 

Meet Marley, an unassuming high school junior who breathes in music like oxygen. In between caring for his heroin-addicted mother, and keeping his scholarship at a fancy prep school, he dreams of becoming a professional DJ. 

When chance lands Marley his first real DJ job, his career as "DJ Ice" suddenly skyrockets. But when heart-rending disaster at home brings Marley crashing back down to earth, he is torn between obligation and following his dreams.

3.5 STARS - I LIKED IT

MY REVIEW: 

I am a huge music addict. I love it as much as Marley does, and as someone who has recently been joking about wanting to be a DJ as a side-job in the future, DJ Rising seemed like one ironic gift from fate when I received it in the mail the other week. Either way, I'm just glad that I ended up liking it.

For DJ Rising to be her first book, Love Maia did an awesome job. Although the beginning was a bit slow, getting used to the setting and Maia's writing style, the book got better as it progressed and as you became invested in Marley and everything that he has to go through.

While the DJ aspect is quite original, you can figure the general plot and ending out just from reading the summary, but that's fine because Maia's writing is what really shines in the story. She manages to evoke so many emotions through her words alone. I was so easily caught up in the story, feeling a raging anger that paralleled Marley's one minute and then feeling heartrendingly anguished the next. 

However, there was one other small complaint that I had when reading DJ Rising. There were a couple of times when I felt like the dialogue was a bit... stilted. For example, Jewel's speech at Hawk near the end, while it was effective, it felt a little scripted. Like, I'm not even sure if people would normally talk that much without being interrupted or something. Anyway, it's a small problem; it doesn't really effect anything.

I'm definitely interested to read whatever Maia writes next.