Mia and the Bad Boy by Lisa Burstein

Title: Mia and the Bad Boy (Backstage Pass #2)

Author: Lisa Burstein

Publisher: Entangled Crush

Release Date: May 19, 2015

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

This good girl’s about to meet her match…

Ryder Brooks is living the dream—he’s famous, loved by millions of girls, and miserable. All he really wants is to write his own music, not Seconds to Juliet’s sugary sweet pop. In order to do that, though, the “bad boy” of the band will have to play by the rules. And that includes behaving with his new—and super cute—über-good-girl tutor.

Mia Reyes is in fangirl heaven. Tutoring her favorite member of her favorite band? It’s a dream come true…until it turns into a complete nightmare. Ryder is nothing like she thought. He’s crude, arrogant, and pretty much a total jerk. And the worst part? She’s roped into pretending to be his girlfriend so that no one finds out he’s being tutored. Fake kisses, plenty of PDA, and even sharing his hotel room…

But sometimes even the baddest of bad boys needs a little redemption.

So boy bands. Have I mentioned I have always been a sucker for them? As I kid, I had Backstreet Boys stuff all over my room. Now I have every single One Direction album on my iPod. So a contemporary series about the members of a popular boy band? You can bet I will be all over that. Lisa Burstein’s Mia and the Bad Boy was the second in that series and I can officially say that I enjoyed it just as much as the first one.

From the outside, Ryder Brooks looks like he’s living the dream. As a member of the most popular boy band on the planet, he’s loved by fans everywhere and gets to do what he wants for living. Except being part of Seconds to Juliet isn’t exactly what Ryder wants to be doing. Sure, he wants to be a musician, but what he really wants is to go to Berklee and study to become a serious musician who can write his own music. But in order to do that, Ryder has to get his GED. Except he can’t seem to keep a tutor for more than a day. That’s where Mia Reyes comes in. The only way Mia will be able to afford college is if she agrees to tutor her favorite member of her favorite boy band. It should be easy enough. But Ryder isn’t like Mia expected. At all. But after all, Ryder is known as the Bad Boy of Seconds to Juliet. As Mia quickly finds out, though, a bad boy isn’t always what he seems.

About a month ago, I read the first book in the Backstage Pass series, Aimee and the Heartthrob and it was a total me book. And it got me excited at the prospect of an entire series of books about the different members of a boy band. And it left me wanting to find out about the rest of the boys in the band. And that’s where Lisa Burstein’s Mia and the Bad Boy came in. Much like I did with the first book, I just sped through Mia and the Bad Boy. I couldn’t seem to flip the pages fast enough. But at the same time, I wanted to find a way to make the story last longer because I couldn’t really get enough of it. The romance between Mia and Ryder exactly what I had hoped it would be. These two were so different but at the same time perfect for each other, and I’ll get to that in a moment. Once again, I loved the boy band aspect of the story. With seeing things from Ryder’s perspective, I got to see the less glamorous sides of it, how being in a hugely popular boy band might not be all it’s cracked up to be when you’re on the outside looking in. In light of that, I’m even more curious about the rest of the books in this series.

Mia was the definition of adorable and naive. But I don’t mean that in an insulting way at all. She’s just had a really strict upbringing and hasn’t really done much outside of school and studying. So when she gets dropped in the middle of a boy band arena tour to tutor the so-called “bad boy” in the band. So yeah, Mia is a little out of her depth, but I really liked seeing her come into her own and discover what the world has to offer outside of school and studying. And Ryder was a pretty good teacher as far as being a little more “bad” went. But here’s the thing about Ryder, when I read Aimee and the Heartthrob, he didn’t exactly make a great impression. In fact, he made a pretty bad one. But first impressions aren’t always everything. Because the Ryder I got to know in this book, was someone I ended up liking. A lot. I mean, Ryder had a bad boy reputation for a reason, but he was also a whole lot more than just that reputation. So him and Mia together were great. Where he taught her to loosen up, she was able to teach him to trust people again. And did I mention that their romance was adorable?

I absolutely enjoyed Lisa Burstein’s Mia and the Bad Boy. Though written by a different author, it was a great follow-up to Aimee and the Heartthrob and made me even more excited about this boy band-centric series. I honestly, can’t wait to find out more about the rest of the band and see what the other authors are going to do with the story.