Unrequited: Emma Grey pens the NEXT. BIG. THING (and reignites my love of boy bands)

Posted on 15 June, 2014

Seventeen-year-old Kat Hartland loathes Unrequited, the world’s biggest boy band. Is she the only girl in Sydney who can’t be bothered with perfect-looking Angus Marsden?

Give her 5 Seconds of Summer. Now.

Or maybe the seriously-hot med student who rescued her on a train—and who could be Douglas Booth’s twin! Perfect formal partner, much?

But when Kat comes face to face with Angus Marsden himself, things start to get complicated. Very. Throw in a deranged female popstar, final exams, a part in the musical and a mum who just doesn’t get it—and where is her best friend? 

When did life get so crazy? Kat’s just an ordinary schoolgirl.

Isn’t she?

Having someone you admire achieve a goal they have been working towards for a long time is a great thing to see. Having someone you actually know write a book that is really good is very cool. Having that person ask you to review their book AND getting to read it before it’s released is one my most favourite things in the world!  So I was super excited when author, businesswoman, HerCanberra contributor and all round fabulous woman Emma Grey sent me her latest novel, Unrequited.

Aimed at the teen/young adult market Unrequited is a story that will be enjoyed by young teens and their parents alike. It is a very easy read that had me up until well after midnight every night last week promising ‘just one more chapter’.

When 17 year old Kat’s mother asks her to accompany her younger twin sisters to the UK boy band Unrequited concert she does so, albeit not happily. On the train to the concert she literally bumps into Joel, aka McDreamy, a slightly older and extremely handsome medical student but leaves without exchanging any details (a bit Cinderella like but without losing her pair of Converse).

While her sisters carry on in typical obsessive fan-girl style throughout the concert Kat tunes out by listening to music she actually enjoys on her iPod, much to the amusement of Angus Marsden, extremely hot leader of Unrequited.  Angus is intrigued by the girl who can sit through an entire concert of the hottest new boy band in town listening to other music, totally ignoring the technically choreographed dance moves, floating stages and fireworks.

Of course you know that Joel and Angus will have to find out who Kat is, and her ordinary student life will be turned upside down in the way that only first love and infatuation can possibly do. Kat isn’t the only one experiencing the confusion of falling in love, there is more unrequited love than Kat can deal with on her own!

You can call me naïve and a dreamer but I like to look at the Kate Middleton and Princess Mary stories and think these amazing stories could happen to anyone. If you are a believer too, you will love this book as much as I did.

Emma has very consciously used modern language and references that will resonate with the younger audience. I didn’t actually know that 5 Seconds of Summer were a real band…there is a reason I am the book reviewer and not the music person for HerCanberra.

The characters are so well developed that if they stepped off the pages I would like to take them out for coffee. I suspect that some of them may be based on Emma’s daughters and her friends – I wonder if they can see themselves in Kat, Lucy, Sarah, Annie or Jess…

While the younger audience may equate boy-band Unrequited to One Direction and see Angus represented as their favourite in the group, I saw them as my teenage crush; New Kids On The Block and Angus is my Joey. Ahhh Joey – he is still incredibly cute, have you seen him lately?!  I spent so many hours of the early 1990’s singing (in tune) into my microphone/hair brush and practising my extremely complex and co-ordinated dance moves in front of the posters blu-tacked to my bedroom walls. This is the way my memory tells my story anyway!

Unrequited took me back to the days when my Milli Vanilli, Rick Astley, Tiffany and Roxette posters were covered over by NKOTB, Jon Bon Jovi, Guns’N’Roses and Metallica. With the power to bring Step by Step and I’ll Be Loving You (Forever) to the top of my play list I really enjoyed Unrequited.

How can you resist the chance to fall back in love with your first boy band and follow Kat as she falls in love…maybe with a boy band or maybe with a medical student?

the essentials

What: Unrequited
Genre: Young Adult Romantic Fiction
How much: $24.95
Buy: www.unrequited.com.au