Anya and the Shy Guy by Suze Winegardner

Title: Anya and the Shy Guy (Backstage Pass #4)

Author: Suze Winegardner

Publisher: Entangled Crush

Release Date: July 14, 2015

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

It’s always the quiet ones…

Anya Anderson doesn’t just need a big break, she needs any break. Living on the streets doesn’t leave a girl many options, so when she scores a gig reporting on the Seconds to Juliet tour, she jumps at the chance to earn enough money to sleep somewhere safe. And the paycheck will get bigger—and keep her off the streets for good—if she can dig up dirt on Will Fray, the irritatingly hot “shy guy” of the band.

Problem is, Will Fray isn’t who everyone thinks he is. In fact, he’s not Will at all. Matt, Will’s identical twin, is actually the guy onstage, reluctantly covering for his brother while he’s in rehab. To make matters worse, Matt’s being shadowed by a cute reporter with troubled eyes determined to get the scoop. On him. And he’s having trouble finding the willpower to keep his distance…

But it the secret gets out, it won’t just be his head on a platter—it’ll be the whole band’s.

I’m afraid I might start sounding like a broken record (pun semi-intended?) when it comes to the Backstage Pass series. But what can I really say, boy bands and romance are apparently all I need to keep me happy. So Suze Winegardner’s Anya and the Shy Guy? Totally loved it.

Being sent to cover the Seconds to Juliet tour is just the break that Anya needs. If all goes well, this could be her ticket to moving off the streets and finally getting her life back on track. But when she joins up with the tour, things aren’t exactly how Anya thought they would be. Instead of covering the whole band, Anya gets assigned to Will Fray, the shy one in the band. Her task? Uncovering all of this secrets. It shouldn’t be too hard, right? Especially considering Will is hiding a pretty big one. Because Will isn’t Will at all, he’s actually his identical twin brother, Matt, presenting to be Will while the real Will is in rehab. But no one can find out, especially not Anya. If people were to find out the truth about Will and Matt, it would mean the end for their family. But the more time Matt and Anya spend together, the harder it becomes to deny the attraction between them. So what happens when you have to expose the secrets of the one person you don’t want to hurt?

Since May, I’ve pretty much been devouring the Backstage Pass series. I’ve loved getting to know each of the different members of the band and the girls in their lives. I’ve loved reading all these stories about people falling in love with a huge tour as the backdrop. It’s been all been a fun story to read. And what I’ve liked about the story is that each of the books goes a little deeper than just the happy romance and the boy band shenanigans. And it was never more true than it was with Suze Winegardner’s Anya and the Shy Guy. Sure, this story was about the romance between Matt and Anya but it was also about the realities of homelessness, and how it’s often circumstances completely outside of the person’s hands that lead to them ending up on the streets. In the case of Anya, in the book, she didn’t want to be on the streets but her family circumstances made it so she didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. All that to say that it was nice to see the story go beyond the romance and tackle some issues that you don’t necessarily see portrayed all that much in YA books. But that’s not to say that the romance wasn’t great because it absolutely was.

As I’ve already said, Anya, besides being a reporter, was also a homeless teen and it made for a very interesting character. And it also made it so my heart broke for her on more than one occasion while I was reading Anya and the Shy Guy. This girl had all the good intentions in the world but she just couldn’t seem to catch a break when she absolutely deserved one. So it was great to see her finally get that break with the Seconds to Juliet tour. But as much as she wanted her big break, she struggled with getting it at the expense of Will. Well, Matt’s expense which is also Will’s expense and that’s where things got a little bit tricky. Where all the other books in the series were about actual members of a boy band, it wasn’t the case here. Matt was reluctantly going on stage every night to cover for his brother. So at times it was really amusing to read about him struggling with choreography or with lyrics the other boys believed he wrote. And it definitely made things complicated for his relationship with Anya. But at the end of the day, it all worked itself out, and Matt and Anya were absolutely adorable together.

I really enjoyed getting to read Matt (though it technically should have been Will’s, I guess) and Anya’s story in Suze Winegardner’s Anya and the Shy Guy. I’ve loved getting to know the boys of Seconds to Juliet and I can’t wait to read all about Nathan in Erin Butler’s Abby and the Cute One.