Poorly marketed as a hood hook for those who liked Daisy Jones and incredibly repetitive. It did not read to me like adult fiction it barely read like YA!

Not a book I enjoyed and not one I’d recommend.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy in exchange of an honest review.

Wow! What a wild ride! I really loved this madcap adventure. It was zany, heartfelt and made me feel all of the things. Awesome!

I really enjoyed Botleg Stardust, it was so much fun! I grew up dreaming of rockstars and the rockstar life, and that's what this book is. A young man's dream of becoming a rock star suddenly becomes imminent as he grabs his guitar and heads to Abby road for a dream audition. But, our dreams never turn out the way we expect them too.
This book is full of rockstar cameos, complicated relationships, and hardcore partying! What a trip!

I really wanted to love this book, especially since it's touted as appealing to fans of Daisy Jones. Unfortunately, I am DNF'ing this book at about the 30% mark. I can't bring myself to pick it back up. The writing is painful and repetitive and I'm having a hard time believing this book is supposed to take place in the 70s, not to mention the fact that some unknown musician from Calgary gets picked out of the blue to replace a member in a famous band. Perhaps if this book was marketed to a younger audience I would have gone in with different expectations. Oh well, can't win them all. Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the advanced copy.

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom on your way to the top.

Bootleg Stardust is a novel set in 1974 about a young high school dropout, Levi Jaxon. Levi hasn’t had the easiest road in life, being put in one foster home after another and then living in his best friend’s basement along with Rudy (his best friend) and Evelyn (Rudy’s mother). The two seem to have taken Levi into their home and family.

With a touch of luck, Levi is thrust into the spotlight with a famous band, Downtown Exit.. or has he? He’s actually auditioning to cover for the band’s guitarist when things go awry onstage. He is forced to quickly deal with jealousy, drama, and big egos that are often drug-fueled. There is a love story entwined in this.

This novel was compared to Daisy Jones & The Six, so I went into it with high hopes, but the similarities ended at a band in the 70s. This was much different, and I wish it would have been marketed a bit differently. I get why it was marketed this way, as the “Daisy Jones” trope is quite popular right now, but it was not at all similar. It was enjoyable, but not my favourite. I felt like it was quite rushed at times and we didn’t see as much character development as there could have been, a lot of it seemed repetitive at times in regard to dialogue, when we could have had a little more development. I also was confused at times with some of the characters and their intentions, their names and nicknames, and whether or not this wanted to be a YA or adult book. I think it was somewhere in the middle?

All in all, it was a good little beach read that you can polish off in an afternoon.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada in exchange for a fair and honest review, and I’d like to thank them for the advance copy.

“Just a small town girl
Livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Just a city boy
Born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere ... “
— ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’, Journey

‘Bootleg Stardust’ doesn’t begin quite this way, but near enough:

“Our keyboard player quit but we turned up for the gig anyway. It didn’t matter. At most, the Salty Dog pub had about five people in it, and that included the bartender, who felt sorry for us and brought us a pitcher of Milano beer. He said he liked the way we placed ‘Space Oddity’. Not many bands covered David Bowie, he said, so it was pretty good to even try.”

The overview of Calgary author and musician Glenn Dixon’s novel describes it as “Daisy Jones & the Six meets Nick Hornby”, which, in my opinion does his novel a disservice. While I love both “Daisy Jones” and Hornby’s “High Fidelity”, “Bootleg Stardust” has a beat and rhythm all its own.

Set in 1974, when the music scene is alight with Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie, the novel is about a young musician, Levi Jaxon, who wins a dream gig with Downtown Exit, an already-established band who invites him to join them on a European tour and recording session at Abbey Road Studios.

Downtown Exit’s debut album has just gone gold and the band is desperately trying to put together a follow-up album but it’s not going well. They’re on tour in Europe, fighting on stage, bingeing on drugs and alcohol and burning down hotel rooms.

Levi is an endearing protagonist. He is very talented but twenty years old and too young and inexperienced to be thrown into a maelstrom of prima donna egos and rivalries, cut-throat record label executives and age old secrets.

I loved this book, the humour, the offbeat characters, the authentic 70’s vibe. Read it!

A huge thank you to @NetGalley and @simonschusterca for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bootleg Stardust by Glenn Dixon follows the incredible rise to fame of a guitar player from Calgary in the early 70s.

Levi travels to Abbey Road studios after he submits a demo tape and finds himself embarking on a road that sees him first backing up a lead guitarist for a rock band just on the rise and then becoming the lead and budding songwriter in the recording studio and on stage in a short European tour. Given the fact that we are in the 70s, bell bottoms, drug use and alcohol consumed by the bottle is prevalent and it must be said that Dixon does a fantastic job of transporting us to that moment in rock history. Jim Morrison references, a Keith Richards sighting, etc all lend a hand.

Going in, I was hoping for a glimpse behind the curtain and I did get that but only in a romanticized way. The novel reads like one of those schlocky television movies that is one part silly fun and one part completely dismissible. Almost every single turn you can see coming and many times you read something and just challenge yourself to believe it. For example, our main character driving a bus in a place he has never been with no help but also no issues. I enjoy escapism but ensure the rest of your book follows that vision.

At the very best I might suggest this as a beach read but beyond that, if you are looking for a novel that allows you some thrills behind the scenes in the music industry, this isn’t it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing a copy for review.

I DNF'd this.

It was tag-lined to appeal to people like me who loved Daisy Jones and the Six, but it seemed the only similarity was that it was set in the 1970s and about a guy trying to make it big.

I found the dialogue to be really one-dimensional and the writing style just did not appeal to me; it felt very young (almost middle grade) in the descriptions and depictions so I found it hard to take the story seriously and to even place who this story's target audience was (was it YA? Was it adult, since the main character is, technically an adult? I'll never know).

There was nothing that helped set this in the 1970s either, other than the synopsis and a few song references. There was nothing atmospheric about this and I was bored so I decided not to finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for my complimentary copy of "Bootleg Stardust". I absolutely adored this novel. To be honest I wasn't sure what I would think about this book when I first started reading it as it had some mixed reviews. I really enjoyed it and I feel it's a perfect read for the upcoming summer season.

The story focuses on Levi, an aspiring musician from Calgary, Alberta. He can sing, write songs, and play the guitar. When an opportunity arises for an audition with a chart topping band called Downtown Exit, Levi finds himself traveling to the other side of the world to London. He is about to learn that fame comes with a price. Levi is then thrown into a world of cut-throat relationships, drug parties, and violence. Will he loose himself; or will he be able to succeed?

"Bootleg Stardust" takes readers back to the 70's and makes references to some of the decades favourite bands including "The Rolling Stones", and "Led Zeppelin" to name a few. The story provides some insight into how drugs were at the forefront of that time and it also gives readers some awareness of the process of recording a record during earlier times. Parts of the book are poetic and it references popular poets such as Keating and Levi uses these poems as inspiration for his songwriting. This makes for a beautiful storyline and for readers who enjoy poetry, you will most likely enjoy this aspect of the book.

"Bootleg Stardust" also offers a love story between Levi and another character named Ariadne. She is the band's photographer and a writer at heart. Ariadne is sure to capture your heart just as she has captured Levi's. I love a book that takes me down memory lane and "Bootleg Stardust" was perfect.

The author Glenn Dixon has written "Juliet's Answer: One Man's Search for Love and the Elusive Cure for Heartbreak", and "Pilgrim in the Palace of Words: A Journey through the 6,000 Languages of Earth". I have added both of these books to my TBR as I am now really interested in reading these ones as well.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get into this one and DNFd at 20%. The writing was so juvenile and under developed. The plot was too far fetched and unbelievable to be attention grabbing.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgallery for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. The publication date is set for April 6, 2021.

Brief Synopsis:
Levi Jaxon has been living in his best friend’s basement after moving around foster homes for years. After taking an audition at Abby Road Studeios for American band, Downtown Exit, Levi is throw in to a world of rock and roll stardom. However, will he learn to navigate the negative egos, jealous fits and shocking secrets in this new life or will they take him to rock bottom instead?

My Thoughts/Opinions:

This novel is a fast read & gives us a little taste in to the music industry world and what can happen when you’re thrown in to it at a young age.
The problem I had with this book though was that everything felt flat. The characters didn’t feel properly developed or given a ‘life’, the plot was a little underwhelming and sentences were repetitive or felt as if there was not enough meat in them to create an image. (If that even makes sense??).

I enjoyed some of the drama in here but honestly, it just feel really flat for me unfortunately. I don’t know if maybe the repetitiveness was the main issue for me with this one. I’m sorry!!

Books about fictional rock bands from the late ’60s and early-to-mid ’70s are suddenly now in vogue. Last year, David Mitchell published a book about a rock band called Utopia Avenue, a book I intend to review soon. More recently, a book about a ’70s band with a female Black protagonist at its centre is being published on March 30, 2021, and it is called The Final Revival of Opal & Nev. To this fray comes Canadian author Glenn Dixon, who is publishing his debut novel — also a rock ’n’ roll tale from the mid-‘70s — Bootleg Stardust. The book is kind of an Almost Famous tale of a young man who gets to live the rock and roll dream in all its sex and drugs glory by joining one of his favourite bands. Too bad that the book is so ineptly written because there was some real gold to be mined in the telling of this tale.

The year is 1974. Levi Jaxon lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is a member of a fledgling rock band. However, he’s about to hit rock bottom when the band breaks up. He’s living in his best friend’s mother’s home and is completely unemployed and is possibly unemployable in any substantial way because he’s illiterate. However, he’s been sending out demo tapes to various labels in the hopes that he’ll get a big break. One day, he gets a phone call from Abbey Road Studios in London, England, where a band called Downtown Exit is recording. Would Levi like to come to London to audition for the band? Faster than you can say, “yes,” Levi is whisked off in an adventure that sees him go from being an anonymous sideman (to cover up the real band member’s deficiencies on guitar in a live setting) to a full member of the group. However, trouble seems to follow Downtown Exit around every corner. Will Levi be swept up by it?

I don’t want to be churlish or crude, but Bootleg Stardust is a book that is poorly written. It is full of clumsy sentences such as (and I’m pulling this from memory), “He went back to the back of the house.” I don’t know if this is part of the plan because the main character cannot read, or if the author needed a better editor to massage the text. (As well, while I’m on a roll here, why is the book called Bootleg Stardust to begin with? The reason doesn’t come up anywhere in the text, and the book is hardly about bootlegs.) The big weakness of the book is that Levi is completely oblivious as a man in his early 20s. He has the mind of a child, and everything must be explained or spelled out for him and, one would assume the reader. For instance, does Dixon not think that people reading this book would know what the word “smack” refers to? It has to be explained like everything else (it’s a slang word for heroin), and this bogs down the text.

The book is also clumsy when it comes to describing the nature of recording industry contracts. Because the main character can’t read, we understand he has signed away his rights for an opportunity to become a full member of one of his favourite bands. But the book holds off in explaining just how Levi is trapped, holding it off for a rather limp “big reveal” towards the climax of this novel. This points to an even bigger problem with the book. At certain points, Dixon drops some plot twists to spruce up the text to make the reader go “Wow”! However, some of these “twists” are real whoppers and seemingly have no basis. If you want to read this book, I’d advise you to stop reading right here because I’m going to tell you a few things that happen in the first half of the book that isn’t covered by the dust jacket. We find out that Levi’s best friend’s mother has set up the audition for Levi to join Downtown Exit by working some favours amongst her friends, even though she has been out of the music business for many years. (Another thing we find out — she was training to be a concert pianist 20 years earlier.) One would assume she has lost touch with people in the music industry because some of them went to jail. So how would she be able to pull strings? However, the biggest surprise is we find out that Levi’s best friend’s mother is his mother, which is why she plucked him out of foster care. Wow. Can a book become any more implausible than that?

I will say that Bootleg Stardust does tend to get a bit better as it goes along, as the band members and managers start to warm up to Levi, and the book is kind of fun in a trashy way. Make no bones about it, Bootleg Stardust is not a book that you will be calling High Literature. I know this is the author’s first novel following a memoir he had published, but the writing is so pedestrian, and its handling of plot points is so awkward, that one is a bit surprised that the book is being printed by a major Canadian publisher. This is a flawed excuse for a rock ’n’ roll novel, one that teeters on the brink of being completely laughable. I know this read is being filed under the label “Humor” and some of the book is kind of funny in an “I can’t believe I’m reading this” kind of way. However, Bootleg Stardust is a baffling read — one that feels weak and underdeveloped. If you’re looking for something that’s a stellar take of rock ’n’ roll of the mid-‘70s, my guess is — and this remains to be seen — you might be better off reading one of the other tomes mentioned in the first paragraph of this review. Bootleg Stardust is slight and doesn’t get much better than that, I’m afraid.

Bootleg Stardust is a fun romp into '70's rock and roll - what happens if your dreams come true?
Levi Jaxon (from Calgary, Alberta) has the opportunity to audition for Downtown Exit, an emerging rock band. He travels to Europe to audition, join the band, and gets on the wildest ride of his short life.
Bootleg Stardust is a pretty fun read - it has some Almost Famous vibes in the beginning of it - Levi is in over his head. In the first half of the book, the character development is not bad - there are some interesting and unexpected dimensions added to the main players, but those dimensions are not fully developed. The plot moves along quickly, but the last 1/4 of the book really fell flat for me - the resolution just did not work.
This novel is an easy and fast read, but it definitely loses steam in the final quarter. This book may be a great summer/ long weekend read if you like your rock and roll.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The writing is extremely repetitive and I feel like I am unable to connect with the story or the characters. I have made it to the 49% mark and I doubt I will be continuing to read this one.

Some of the repetitive lines include "If you want to know the truth", "That's pretty cool if you ask me" & " Sheet-it". I understand it is part of the character, but I can't get past it.

I actually enjoyed this book for the most part. I read a few reviews before I began, so I was prepared for this to be more young adult than the adult it was described as and I’m glad I did because it was quite juvenile. In the writing style and the personalities of the characters.
I also haven’t read Daisy Jones, so I had nothing to compare it to.
I enjoyed the conflicts and the drama. I loved the foreshadowing of the chapter titles, it was super unique.
However, I felt like Levi could have been... more. He bothered me a little bit. I assumed this would be a character driven story due to the blurb and the rock and roll aspect but it was more a plot driven novel with very little character development and I was a little disappointed by that.
All in all I liked it, but I didn’t love it. It definitely wasn’t what was expected when I requested it. It could be described as a fun read where I was expecting it to have way more depth due to its topics.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me two copies of this book. I won a copy on Goodreads as well. I wasn't sure that I would like this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. The characters seemed very real to me. I actually cared about some of them. The band, the touring, the ups and downs of being part of a band, was very accurate. The egos, the drugs, the women all part of being in a band, in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Really interesting read.

I was disappointed with this book. The writing style seemed more in line with a YA book.
The characters did not grab me.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

Bootleg Stardust feels more like mature YA to me than an adult dramatic novel. Our main character Levi is a young, naive and immature 20-year-old who joins the hot new band Downtown Exit. As an adult, I found it difficult to relate to Levi, because he was written so young that at times I thought he was a teen. As he embarks on his journey into rock and roll stardom, he keeps learning a lot about people, life, relationships, the big world and himself. Even describing it makes me feel like I'm writing about an after school special.

I have no issues reading some YA every now and then, but Bootleg Stardust is described like an adult book. If this was aimed at a younger audience, I would have went in with different expectations and probably come out enjoying the story more.

In 1974 Levi is a high school dropout with dreams of being a rock star when suddenly this seemingly impossible fantasy is within reach.

He lands an audition for Downtown Exit, a band that is the latest sensation well on their way to attaining rock and roll greatness. Levi believes he is being catapulted into the stratosphere of stardom, but nothing is quite what it seems. While he is playing with the band, he isn’t part of it, relegated to lurking in the wings and covering for the bands real guitarist whenever he begins tripping out on stage.

It won’t surprise you to find out that there is a girl, isn’t there always? and conflicts in the band. But that’s not to say that there aren’t some surprises to be found here. I always enjoy a story that takes place in my favourite decade and better yet one ensconced in the music scene of the same period.

As you likely know by now, I love an unusual framework. Each chapter of this book bears the title of a song on the fictional bands upcoming album. Giving the reader a sneak peak of what might be on the horizon.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Bootleg Stardust was extremely disappointing.
When I saw this book on NetGalley, I was instantly intrigued. I honestly didn’t expect to receive an ARC, but I requested it anyway. I was beyond thrilled when I was accepted. But it only went downhill from there.

I was most excited for this book for the promising backdrop of the rock and roll music scene in the 1970’s. As a big fan of ‘70s music, and also because this book was compared to Daisy Jones and the Six which I adored, I was so looking forward to this story. I did not at all get what I had been anticipating in terms of setting (or anything really).
Sure, I was TOLD that we were in 1974, but I didn’t FEEL it. It was very much lacking in atmosphere.

The writing style was extremely immature.
I am still struggling to decipher what the target age group for this book is supposed to be. Based on the synopsis, I had assumed that it was an adult novel, and that is how it is advertised on both NetGalley and Godreads. It sure doesn’t feel that way. The protagonist was 20 years old, so perhaps it was supposed to be YA? But at the same time, the writing style is often so juvenile that it almost reads like a middle grade novel. Here are a few examples:
I took my guitar and Rudy had his bass. Katrina had her sticks but we left the rest of the gear, and peeled out of there, out through the back door, out into the cold, our breaths huffing out in cloudy blasts.
The writing style in passages like this reminded me of the way that I wrote in elementary school (I'm sorry that sounds harsh). It's very choppy and full of straight across descriptions.
Rudy’s dad, but he died a few years ago. It was cancer, one of the really bad ones.
Lines like this made me question if this was really intended to be for adults. This is a weird statement to find in an adult novel, in my opinion.
I always liked their band name. I liked the letter X in it. I always thought X was the coolest letter in the alphabet.
You’ve got to be kidding me.

The writing was also extremely bland.
The author seemed dependent on the frequent use of statements like “if you didn’t know”, and “if you ask me”, which I found to be repetitive, irritating, and, again, juvenile. Here are a couple of examples:
Evelyn was amazing on the piano. She’d gone to Julliard – which if you don’t know, is about the most important music school in the world.
It was that pirate thing again which was pretty cool if you ask me.
I wrote a great big L for Levi then squiggled out my last name. My handwriting was pretty messy if you really want to know the truth.
It seriously never ended!

All of the characters are lifeless. From main characters, to background characters, to everyone in between, they were underdeveloped and uninteresting. I did not feel an ounce of attachment to a single character in the story.
Levi was honestly a very unlikeable protagonist. Outside of his narration being painfully immature and boring, I did not like his arrogance and the manner in which he treated others. I thought that he was unnecessarily mean to his friend, Rudy.
”Rudy,” I said. “Please. Don’t wreck this for me.” [...] It’s not that I didn’t want to help Rudy. It’s just that he didn’t really belong here. This wasn’t his world at all.
“I need to go,” I said. “There’s nothing for me here.” “No,” he said. “You can’t go yet.” “Please,” I managed. “I have to be a musician. I’m going to be famous.” “You can live in my mom’s basement. She said so.” “Evelyn said that?” He considered me. His lower lip was trembling just a bit. “I’m going to be famous,” I said again, like that counted for anything.

The romance was painfully underdeveloped. There was very little connection before Levi was all of a sudden professing his love to a full audience at a concert, might I add. If I were Adriane, I think that I would have been running in the other direction from this guy after that.

I disliked the plot. I found that it was filled with many ridiculous plot twists that honestly just made for a whole lot of unnecessary drama that did not seem to serve any actual purpose to the plot, setting, or character development. The overarching story got lost in the muddle of superfluous drama.

If you’re looking for a fun, atmospheric read that set in the 1970’s Rock’n’Roll scene, this ain’t it.