Don’t be fooled by the title! Band geek or not, Band Geek Love by Josie Bloss is an enjoyable read for all.

This story surrounds the life of Ellie Snow, a senior in the marching band who is the strict, all-business section leader of the trumpets. Ellie expects everything to go perfectly at Final inspection (the performance at the end of band camp). Her section of trumpets are as ready as ever, and she is excited about getting to play her long awaited solo. But as she gets ready to wail away on her trumpet, she looks up into the stands, and happens to meet eyes with a cute boy. She gets distracted and botches the very first note of her solo. She, of course, angrily blames him for it all. That boy, Connor, turns out to be the new kid in the band. The funny thing is, he plays trumpet just like Ellie, and he’s going to join her section. Huh, that’s just trouble waiting to happen.

This story rang very true to me, being a band geek myself. But even so, there are so many great things about this book that would capture anyone’s attention. First off was the humor. Every few pages I found myself chuckling, or just flat out laughing my guts out. Ellie’s character is sarcastic and unintentionally hilarious. Although she is overly self absorbed, easily angered, and tends to blow situations out of proportion at times, she will never cease to keep you chuckling to yourself and entertained throughout the book.

Another great aspect of this book was how real the characters were. As I was reading, it was almost as if the characters were jumping off the page! They weren’t perfect little angels that do nothing wrong like the protagonists in some books. These characters had relatable flaws, personalities, and situations that I enjoyed reading about. My mood swung up and down with Ellie’s as she went through good times and bad, and to me, being able to capture emotion to where it touches the reader personally is a sign of a great book.

To say the least, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Band Geek Love. It was a quick read that was very cute and kept me turning the pages. The setting of marching band made it very unique and focusing on a band kid’s life gives the reader a different perspective to explore, rather than just reading about the typical popular/unpopular kid.

Anyways, this was a great book. I recommend this to any and everyone, especially all those band geeks out there!