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Welcome to Dayle Loves This, wherein I recommend books, TV, and movies (and maybe other things) that rocked my world.
If they don’t rock your world, that’s okay. We all have reader/watcher cookies as well as triggers. If you have questions, go ahead and ask. And please make your own suggestions, and discuss!
The friend who recommended Kill the Boy Band by Goldy Moldavsky to me did so hesitantly. She thought I’d like it, but there was also a chance I’d be deeply offended by it.
I love it. It’s a book both about how loving a band can bring friends together, and a book about how teenage fandom is seriously unhinged. (Given that I’m an über-fan of Styx, I can see why my friend worried about recommending it to me.) The book is also incredibly funny.
I remember when I first read it: Ken was asleep and I was reading in bed beside him, shaking silently, trying desperately to not let out howls of laughter.
The boy band in question is an English quartet called the Ruperts…because they all have the first name of Rupert. They came together because of a show called So You Think the British Don’t Have Talent? If that doesn’t make you laugh, this may not be the book for you.
Our heroine—I’m not sure if her real name is ever mentioned because the book is in first person and whenever she’s asked, she uses the names of 1980s movie teen characters*—and three other teens finagle their way into booking a room at the same hotel where the Ruperts will be staying in NYC. They’re each a fan of a different Rupert.
The book starts in their room, where they have one of the Ruperts tied up with stockings in a chair. They’ve kidnapped a Rupert.
How that happens is howlingly funny, but I don’t want to give too much away.
But I will say that when our heroine meets her idol, she says, My face at the moment was the Heart Eyes emoji.
What really works is that the author understands fandom. When confronted as to why she loves the Ruperts, our heroine ponders whether it’s the music (catchy, mindless pop), the fact that they’re hot, for who they are, “…but mostly I love them for how they made me feel. Which was happy.”
Later, she thinks:
Other people may have seen fangirls as crazy teenage girls obsessed with a fad, but they couldn’t understand the small but important joy you get from indulging in these fandoms. They didn’t understand that a new gif of Rupert K. grinning at you could be the difference between a crap day and a beautiful day. They didn’t get the friendships that formed, the community of people who shared in your same joy. Maybe it was obsession, but it was also happiness; an escape from the suckiness of everyday life. And when you find something that makes you happy and giddy and excited every day, us fangirls know a truth that everyone else seems to have forgotten: You hold on to that joy tenaciously, for as long as you can. Because it’s rare to get excited about anything these days. Ask your parents.
Did I choke up when I read that?
Hells yeah.
Kill the Boy Band is a page-turner of a book, funny and dark and layered. The ending is…it could give you any manner of feels. I don’t want to influence that.
Still, Dayle suggests that if you’re a hardcore fan of anything, this is a book for you.
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