Kill the Boy Band

Written by Goldy Moldavsky

Narrated by Barrett Wilbert Weed

From debut author Goldy Moldavsky, the story of four superfan friends whose devotion to their favorite boy band has darkly comical and murderous results.

Okay, so just know from the start that it wasn't supposed to go like this. All we wanted was to get near The Ruperts, our favorite boy band.

We didn't mean to kidnap one of the guys. It kind of, sort of happened that way. But now he's tied up in our hotel room. And the worst part of all, it's Rupert P. All four members of The Ruperts might have the same first name, but they couldn't be more different. And Rupert P. is the biggest flop out of the whole group.

We didn't mean to hold hostage a member of The Ruperts, I swear. At least, I didn't. We are fans. Okay, superfans who spend all of our free time tweeting about the boys and updating our fan tumblrs. But so what, that's what you do when you love a group so much it hurts.

How did it get this far? Who knows. I mean midterms are coming up. I really do not have time to go to hell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Release date: Feb 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9780545911054

Goldy Moldavsky

Goldy Moldavsky has a BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College, and her non-fiction work has appeared in MovieMaker magazine. She is the author of Kill the Boy Band.

Reviews for Kill the Boy Band

[Jameson Thomas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I laughed. I cried. I lost ten pounds. Not really, but this book is really funny, unique, and weird. Why not give it a shot?

[vanessa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This audiobook is amazing! And the story was hilarious 10/10

[Heather Borsani · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was actually a lot of fun. It took me back to my days of being obsessed with boy bands.. and I may sllightly still really enjoy my boy bands BUT this was good. It was easy to follow and listen. I binged this book in a couple days. Would have been sooner, but I listen while I work and sometimes I get distracted lol There was a nice little twist and I liked that. Really made me go "OOHHH WOW!!" haha Anyway its decent. Looking forward to reading some more like this! Enjoy! x

[Jae Beom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good story about a fangirl, boy band, humor mystery and love the narrator's voice

[Petrana · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

bahaha i loved it (may he rest in peace). where was this when i was a teenager??

[Tiffani Smith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What can I say about this book except that it was very average. The story was okay, the characters were at times annoying but I think that was the point, and really it read like fan-fiction. Which I’m not sure if that was the point either.

[Tina · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I don't think I'm the target audience, but I'm not sure who is.

I'd like to preface this review with a disclaimer: I grew up in (on, around, and with) fandom. Thirteen-year-old me was already writing fanfiction to publish it online and I met a lot of people through various fandoms. Some of those people are still my close friends. On the other hand, I've only brushed against RPF and I've never really figured out the point of boy bands so my experience with fandoms is a little different. I know people, however, who are in boy band fandoms and I know these things can get intense...

Alright, disclaimer over.

Confession time.

I really, really didn't like this book. The premise could have worked great with a more careful handling, but sadly, that didn't happen. After the first 10 chapters, I thought I'd end up giving it a 2 star review, but then it kept going downhill at such a speed that every time I suspected it can't get more painful, it went and did.

Let's see. It's about despicable people doing despicable things to each other. There's not a single character in the book I'd want to root for and they aren't even well-crafted evil characters, the sort you'll end up fascinated by even as you abhor their actions. No, they're simply caricatures of evil or at least misguided human beings.

Speaking of caricatures, what genre was this book supposed to be? A dark comedy? A parody? A psychological thriller? A mystery? Coming of age? Fanfiction that got mainstream published by some accident? It blends all of those in ways that really don't work.

It's offensive, too. Everything about the way some of the characters were written made me uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable. And, among other things, it played sexual harassment for laughs. (view spoiler)

Even the revelations fall flat. The true nature of the girls or the band members is so predictable and embarrassingly stereotypical and one dimensional, and the ending is underwhelming and unsatisfactory. I felt betrayed: the beginning of the novel promised a much bigger bang to the end. The attempt on ambiguity failed, as it was limited strictly to the narrator doing a lot of telling instead of showing any alternative clues.

One thing I have to give to the book: the way it's written makes one want to read on just to see how the plot will unravel. There're also one or two thoughts about the fandom culture and friendship that caught my attention, but sadly they ended up buried under in the ridiculous plot and half-baked mystery.

Maybe I'm simply not the target reader... But I'm not sure who the target reader is supposed to be? For people who have no experience with fandoms, the novel would be even more baffling. At the same time, though, it portrays both bands and fangirls in extremely unfavorable lights and does very little to form some sort of balance. My guess is that the ideal reader is one who thinks they'd grown out of fandoms and are able to look at their past critically, but even they may struggle to contain the second-hand embarrassment.

[Liz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was interesting. Very funny but also really stupid. Reading this book you will either like it or hate it.