Hi friends, happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a good week! Today I’m posting my review of Kwame Alexander & Mary Rand Hess’ novel Solo.

Solo by: Kwame Alexander & Mary Rand Hess: Blade Morrison is the son to rocker Rutherford Morrison, but he’d rather not be. Now a washed-up, drug addict rocker, Blade is tired of his father’s antics. After another heated family dispute, Blade learns of a family secret, one that changes his whole world and has him crossing half the globe to try and find himself and the love and acceptance he’s looking for. The reader expected a little more than what they got from this. The story itself was beautiful, and that ending was definitely gut punching, but it didn’t hit the reader in any impactful way. What the reader did like was the integration of rock history and how that related to the main character’s life; it was both informative and descriptive. The plot was captivating as the main character tried to navigate his life, his feelings and to see if he was going to find what he was searching for, but it just lacked heart. This was told in two parts, and the first half was slower than the second; the reader felt like they had to drag through it to get to the better part of the book. The first half was more set up for the second half and the reader found themselves thinking ‘what’s the point’ or ‘so what’ for a lot of it. The characters felt a little one dimensional and they all felt really selfish. It was so hard to like any of them because all they thought about were themselves and how things would benefit them. This is also what made the first half of the novel such a drag. At least in the second half some of these characters get a bit of a redemption arc, but even that couldn’t help how flat some of the secondary characters were. The main character’s father had no depth to him aside from being clichéd rich with a drug problem who wants to do better. The other characters weren’t even very memorable because they weren’t mentioned enough times to be remembered. The main characters, Blade and Joy were developed well. The reader liked Joy more than Blade, even though it was his story; Joy brought a lot out in him and made him a less whiney and more appreciative character. And the reader was so in love with Sia as a character, she was so full of life and she really brought out the better in all of the characters. Her ending was cruel, but a harsh reality that brought awareness to the malaria disease. In the end, the reader really wanted to love this, but it just ended up being an ok read.