Today I’m delighted to be reviewing Hot Wax by M. L. Rio. I have been entranced by Rio’s writing for years and was excited to see her take on rock n roll stardom, the glory and the destruction.
Thank you to Headline for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This review originally appeared on The Nerd Daily.
Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills’ wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning – one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.
The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers.
Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost forever: desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country – and drives her to a desperation all her own.
Publication Date: 9th September
CW: death, grief, violence, manipulation, addiction
My Thoughts:
Written with Rio’s signature stylings, Hot Wax is a fantastic look at the realities of the hedonism of stardom and the cost of pursuing greatness.
M. L. Rio has such exceptional characterisation. They draw you into these pages and feel like you’re intruding on their lives. I have enjoyed this in Rio’s previous work, the layering and depth that is created in such a short space of time. You know and love and hate these people and this book is no exception. The connecting force of the two timelines is Suzanne, running away from that awful night many years ago. Her father’s death has kickstarted this reckless ride across the country and forced her to confront the complicated legacy he has left her with. That perfect storm that exploded in front of her and now drives her to abandon the life she has created. Suzanne is a fantastic protagonist – her voice is piercing and utterly captivating. You can’t help wanting to know her story and I loved her tenacity and the way the walls she built gradually started to show cracks. She is someone that wants to love so deeply but cannot bring herself to be vulnerable enough to. The events she witnessed made her retreat within and hide elements of herself behind a perfect facade.
Hot Wax is such a cool book – it nails that atmosphere and sense of style. Rio’s writing has always been gorgeous and dangerous in equal measure, full of thorns. Here it is channelled into the creative process and the fleeting thrill of stardom. This story is about the ritual of performance, especially the glamour and the glory of having an audience captivated in the palm of your hand. There is such a shine of star quality to Gil’s band and that utterly ensnares Suzanne’s narrative in her past, even though we know it will end in violence. I loved how Rio explored the way music transports to us a place and time and can capture so many emotions. We all have the soundtracks of our lives that may change over time, but a song can take you back to a specific place in an instant. There is plenty explored about the messy process of creating music too – the escalating tensions and simmering feelings that come to a head in dramatic fashion. Performing can mean constant changes and criticism, causing clashes and moods that can change in an instant. At the end of it, all they are pursuing is that greatness and all-consuming nature of the music. For all that music can root us in a moment, it is also a fleeting experience, one song rolling into another. There is an ephemerality to it that hugely informs this story, the fickle nature of fame and chasing that spotlight.
This book is a love letter to the power of music but it is also a gritty and dark examination of the underbelly of the industry. This goes into some difficult territory as you move between the two timelines. From the start, you know the storm is coming and the band will be torn apart but not precisely what happened. That stain of infamy forever alters the shape of Suzanne’s life and you are compelled to know just what happened all those years ago. Rio structures this well, keeping this pulse-pounding tension that never dissipates. With the shine of fame can come the temptation of power and exploitation, as well as the allure of addictive substances. It is a grimy world and conjures up plenty of well-known stories about the darker side of rock n roll. There is a dirtiness to proceedings that buries itself under the fingernails of everyone involved. No one here is entirely innocent, courting the bright lights of fame and chasing that sense of being immortal. You can live forever through your music but that may be all that is remembered of you. In the present day timeline, this manifests in the destructive nature of several of the characters. There is a joy found in freedom but Rio also packs in several twists and turns where nothing is as it first seems.
Like a good song, Hot Wax hooks you in and makes you lose yourself, even if just for a few moments. It exemplifies the sweat, tears and blood that go into the creative process and may just spill over.
A Short Book Lover 
Thank you Becky!
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