I really enjoyed this LGBTQ+ Hollywood YA romance!!! I loved the premise and the beginning so much but felt like it started to fall flat for me around 60% through. Overall really enjoyed it though.

To be honest, I amn't really into the story. The character building is a little shallow. And the ending is quite rash. I'm not related. But I think someone will. I wish the next novel from James would surprise me.

Thanks, NetGalley and the publisher, for the ARC of this book to read early in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to @netgalley and @Stmartinspress for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you to @macmillian.audio for a free download of the audiobook.

Darkhearts by @james_l_sutter is a book I easily became fully immersed in. There’s something about relationships in boybands that seem to just hook me. The shared history between the characters and how it broke them and made them all at the same time. The enemies to lovers trope sealed the deal for me.

4 stars

#books #bookishlife #booklover #readingisfun #iowabookstagrammers #iowabookstagram #netgalley #stmartinspress #macmillianaudio #ltbreaderteam #darkhearts #jamessutter #smpinfluencers

I love books about musician, showing that fame isn’t always being rich and living your best life.
It takes a toll, especially when you’re still very young.
I also love a good second chance romance/ ex friends to lovers.
This had both, and yet I think I wasn’t the main audience for it. This is a book for teenage boys I think, I cringed a lot and found the MC not too likeable honestly.
The ending was very rushed too.
I still think that for the main audience this will be a book well liked!

Darkhearts is trying to be a story about a boybander who comes back to his hometown. It’s trying to be from the POV of the ex-best friend who falls in love with said boybander but honestly nothing really sticks for me.

The pacing of this story is entirely too fast and a lot of David and Chance’s love story is washed over by the drama of the band. The last 25% is David being a person straight out of an AITA Reddit post and yes David you are the asshole for using your boyfriend for fame.

The epilogue was cute, but because we don’t really see beyond it or understand what’s happened between the end of the main story and a month later it falls flat.

Also the Hitler reference??? And the dog ear reference during an intimate scene??? Yeah no thanks. The only reason this is getting two stars is that I actually made it to the end but at what cost.

OMG?? HELLO?? i can’t even process just how good this book was like it was genuinely SO AMAZING!

i’m such a sucker for friends to enemies to lovers and boy bands and TENSION. alsoooo, the characters were so cute and the growth holc has??? I’M LIVING FOR IT!

i loved chase and holc together SO MUCH, they were so cute and precious :,). their relationship was so well written and OH MY GOD I LOVED THEM.
thank you so much netgalley review for the arc!
-5 stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝘼 𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨, 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙩, 𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙚𝙨-𝙩𝙤-𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚, 𝙘𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙬𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙚.

I don’t think this book will be for everyone, but I had a great time reading it. It reminded me so much of other YA books I’ve read in regard to the celebrity aspect.

I switched back and forth between the ebook and the audio. I loved that this book had queer representation and followed a boy band. While this is a YA romance, there were a few difficult topics to read about.

Former boy band member David has split up from Darkhearts, but once his former member, Eli, dies from alcohol poisoning, he reconnects with the other member, Chance. I loved the relationship between both characters and I think the author did a great job at representing sexuality and identity.

It did take me a while to get engaged, but once I did, I couldn’t put this book down. I wasn’t expecting it to begin on a sad note with a funeral, but oh man, the love story was incredible. There were a few repetitive moments, but I just couldn’t stop rooting for the two.

The swoony romance was written so well. I loved David and Chance equally and both characters were relatable. I also loved the fame and music subplots throughout the story.

I thought the audiobook was incredible. The ending was also so wholesome and I just loved every moment of this love story. While I do think some references were unnecessary, I still had such a great time reading this. It would definitely be a great read for young teens/adults!

Thank you so much NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the eARC and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review!

•𝗧𝗪/𝗖𝗪: Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Grief, and Body Shaming

I hate to compare books when they're similar, but I can't help it. This automatically made me think of If This Gets Out because Boy Band, but it's really different. I feel like its missing a lot of interesting elements. It's this cute and all, but I listened to it so it was easier to get into. I don't know that I would have stayed interested had I been reading it on paper.

Thank you soooooo much netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advanced review copy if this book💗
"I voluntarily read and reviewed the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”



Love it

This ya romance is filled with the angst of teenage confusion, big feelings, loss, and the desire to move into adulthood. David is a bit selfish and immature, mostly due to his own choices. Chance likes him anyway, but holds back at a crucial moment and keeps their relationship private. They're both grieving and learning to heal while navigating new confusing facets of their friendship and becoming the men they want to be. Complicated and sweet.

I thought Dark Hearts would be better... in some way.
As I was reading I sought no connection with the main characters and the story just moves on too quickly making it harder to get a sense of what is going on.
I like the fact that they were all in a band, there's a lot of angst, some bit of enemies to lovers which I love. It was fine though. The fact that the story moved way too fast gave the enemies to lovers trope no justice.

It feels weird to say a realistic fiction book is atmospheric, but I became so immersed in this world while reading, within the first 2 chapters. Maybe it’s because I loved the characters right off the bat and saw their individual worth. I don’t know. But this book was so good. I know my students will love it!

This ARC was a HIT. It flew under the radar for me on my TBR and I picked it up purely to work through my ARC backlog. I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did.
Darkhearts is about Chance and David reconnecting after their childhood best friend dies. David hasn't seen them for two years- he quit their band, Darkhearts, after a fight. A month later, they were signed to a label and jetset across the country. David missed out on the fame but has been getting closer to Chance since he's come home for Eli's funeral. David has to decide if he wants to confront his feelings about the band, his jealousy, and his growing attraction to Chance.
I think lyrics were implemented really well into the story. Two things I loved that might have flown under most readers' radars: I love a queer YA book that doesn't shy away from sexuality and the idea that teenagers have sex/are lustful, and I loved that David was chubby. I want more chubby boys in YA romances. body diversity for male characters feels so underrepresented but there's so much that it adds to the story, even in a small way. Some of the dialogue was super Riverdale-y but I was having too much fun to care. I do worry that the dialogue will age the book too much when I go back to reread it, but hopefully its more of a time capsule. The ending was impeccable. I also feel like David wasn't in the wrong during the 3rd act breakup. I feel like this happens to me a lot though, and maybe I'm just a bad friend.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the ARC! I received the copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced copy of this book. I get that teenage lives can be messy and angsty as all get-out, but this book admittedly felt a bit disjointed to me in a way that felt more about the plot itself than the characters.

This one was really hard for me to rate because I really enjoyed the first half but the 65-95% really fell apart for me 😬 David was the most frustrating and self obsessed pov character I’ve read in a long time and being in his head got so annoying the further I got into the story. Honestly by the end, I was barely even rooting for him to end up with Chance because he was just so annoying lol I did enjoy the way the end came together but by the time it got there, I was just not having a good time 🤷🏻‍♀️ anyway, this is one that I wouldn’t not recommend but it’s just not my favorite!

I did enjoy this story, but I felt like the characters flaws were too much compared to the story. It's not a favourite book, but it is not one of the worst books I've read. I do think I'll reread this one eventually down the road in case it was just the headspace I was in.

I like the premise of the story. It’s cute however, I felt like the flaws in the characters were overwhelming. I didn’t love them.

I know that in areas of a conflict they should change but I felt that David was very underwhelming and I am I wish I could have learned more.

I also thought chase was someone who honestly, should be himself.

It felt like the relationship was more about the band and not so much about forgiveness and love.

a charming enemies to lovers romance, i enjoyed this read

thank you to netgalley and to the publisher for this review copy.

I voluntarily read an advanced copy of Darkhearts by James L. Sutter. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

David and Chance had a unique and conflicted relationship and made for an interesting story. I liked the various arcs of their friendship turned enemy turned to romance. My only complaint is that I might have clicked with the book more if the characters had been aged up. That is a personal preference, so this book gets a solid 3/5 stars from me.

This isn’t going to be for everyone, even taking me a while to get into it properly. It starts at a friends funeral - so not your average YA. Slow-burn on love, loss, fame, and friendship.
Just as I started thinking of DNF’ing, thinking they wouldn’t be good together - I became hooked on the story of David (Holc) and Chance.

𝘿𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨 by James L. Sutter (2023) ★★★★☆

David created the emo band, Darkhearts, in junior high with his best friends Chance and Eli, but left the band and fell out with his friends right before they got big. Until Eli’s untimely death due to alcohol poisoning. Chance and David see each other at the funeral for the first time in years. There’s a lot of resentment towards his former friend and the life he thinks was stolen from him.

Chance reaches out to David, perhaps out of loneliness, perhaps just to see his former friend who he doesn’t need to pretend around. They slowly reconnect first, but soon David starts to have feeling towards his former best friend. That start seeing each other, and David sees a chance to rejoin the band.
Second chance at fame or second chance at Chance?

The (emo) band and fame gave a fresh/unique perspective for an otherwise typical bi-awakening, teen angst, frenemies, queer romance. (Shoutouts to Sub-Radio! 😉) A couple references to HP were a bit unnecessary.

Joint read/listened 🎧 with the audiobook, which enhanced my reading experience. The narrator did a great job so I fully appreciated the single POV writing style and emphasis. Honestly, I don’t think I would have liked this story as much without the audiobook.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a chance to early review this story in exchange for an honest review.