Review: Playing the Pauses

Playing the Pauses by Michelle Hazen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Playing the Pauses is the second book in Michelle Hazen’s Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll series, although it works perfectly fine as a standalone novel. I read it as a standalone novel, and did not lose any of the meaning behind the story. There are scenes, however, that build heavily upon events from the first book – so for a fuller understanding of the side characters and their story, it is best to read the series in order. Not necessary, but advised. Although I understood this one perfectly, I do wish to go back and read A Cruel Kind of Beautiful. I was intrigued by the characters and their story, and I’m interested in finding out more about what happened.

I’ll be completely honest about this one – I’m not entirely sure what rating I wish to give it. There were quite a few points where my brain was screaming out for me to hand out a three-star rating – when I first started this book in particular, I was having issues getting into it and was fearing a low rating – but there was something about this one that had me rounding up to the four-star rating when a large part of me believes I wouldn’t usually round up for this kind of three-point-five-star read.

You see, my feelings towards this one are all over the place. There were certain elements of this story that really sucked me in, whereas other parts of the story I didn’t care much about. There were some parts of the story that felt really well done, whereas other parts of the story seemed to fall a bit flat. There were some parts of the story I really enjoyed, whereas other parts of the story I didn’t care for all that much. It’s one of those books that had a paradoxical effect on me, even between chapters, and yet I still found myself rounding up. Why? Because once I got through my initial trouble with the first few chapters, I found myself addicted and in need of answers.

I love a good rock star romance, and this is a big reason why this one screamed out to me. Add in the BDSM element, and I was a goner. The former part I really enjoyed in this one – it wasn’t quite the usual rock star romance, and I enjoyed the slightly different take. It made things interesting, allowed for plenty of drama. The latter I wasn’t so sure about – I love BDSM stories, and this one was certainly unique, but I wasn’t sucked into this element of the story like I usually am. Sure, there were hot moments – however, it didn’t have my heart beating double time like most BDSM storylines. In fact, it was rather anti-climactic, rather tame, compared to what I am used to. It may just be that – how tame it was compared to my norm – that had me feeling as though I was a step removed, yet such was the case.

The story itself was interesting, though. As I said, it was somewhat different to what we usually get in a rock star romance, and I really appreciated this. The BDSM element was also something unusual, which I found myself intrigued by. I feel as though the speed was a bit out – some parts seemed to be dragged out, whereas other parts seemed to be glossed over – but I loved all that played out. There was plenty of drama for our main characters, and we get to see a lot of issues for the side characters as well. I’m really interested in seeing how the third book plays out, as I’m intrigued as to how the final story will come together for this one (hopefully by the time it is released I will have read book one and will be up to date).

Overall, I wasn’t as crazy about this one as I had hoped to be, but I was sucked into the story. I’m certainly interested in reading more of the author’s work.

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