Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for this book. Because everything in me feels that I should’ve loved this story with all my heart. And yet something just didn’t work for me, and whatever that was, it really messed with the rest of my experience.
So, to start my review of Darkhearts, here’s the explanation of the title. Darkhearts was the name of a teen trio band, made up of three guys; David, Chance and Eli. Things were really looking up for them, but they had to admit that as cool as they were, watching a band over and over just wasn’t in the cards for those who knew them locally in their little town, so if they wanted to really make it, they had to branch out. Some infighting led David to drop out of the band and Chance and Eli went off on their own.
It’s been some years now, and David hasn’t talked to either of them in years. He at least has his awesome friend Ridley who is obsessed with anything and everything lovely and geeky. But one day, everyone finds out Eli tragically died, and now Chance is on his own. He returns to his childhood home, now a multi-millionaire, Darkhearts a humongous household-name success. And Chance asks David out to lunch. So they can try to rebuild bridges. Figure out who they are without Eli. And see what could come of this reconnection. David is incredibly reluctant and suspicious. Why would Chance ever want to reconnect with a nobody like him now that he’s top of the charts? But for some reason he just does.
So what we have here is a friends-reconnecting tale that turns into an unexpected romance (probably not much of a spoiler if you glance at the cover), with the drama of show business making it very bumpy. If Chance came out as liking boys, he would have to say farewell to the Bible Belt’s money. Chance insists he doesn’t care about that, but he’s still on the fence about coming out for some reason. He also drags his feet a little at reuniting with their childhood school groups. Chance has an agent who is always trying to get him to do what he needs to do and not what he wants. David’s dad also doesn’t trust Chance, not as a reunited friend, and definitely not as a boyfriend, after everything he did when they were teens to hurt him. So his Dad often needs serious convincing. Or David has to sneak away guiltily. It’s definitely complicated.
And as I said, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood. But it is all told in a slow pace filled with side stories and occasional gross-out humour, when all I really cared about was if David and Chance would be able to pull through their problems and see if they could make a relationship work.
The biggest buzzkill was, I found some of Chance’s decisions and words very uncalled for. David was the one who does the brunt of the work in the climax to make their relationship functional, but by the end, I didn’t buy that Chance was worth the effort. Especially in some scenes when Chance and David decide to try playing music together again, and Chance showed some impatience that got on my nerves. The fact they were trying to work out a relationship together actually made these scenes worse for me, because the occasional rudeness Chance gave is not something you want if you want to have a spouse you can trust and be yourself around. I know all about toxic boyfriends, and Chance had alarm bells going off for me.
The very end at least gives hints that Chance has changed his ways, and then the book concludes. I’m glad the book’s epilogue was there, because it’s a much better ending than the pre-final chapter. In the end though, Darkhearts was a slog that had too many story threads to balance, and a relationship that goes from cute to downright frustrating.
My grade: 1 and a half stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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