Book: Bless This Hot Mess: A Sinfully Funny Story by Kiki Divic Charlie David
Reviewed by RachelHasNoShelfControl
Rating: 4/5
🖤 Campy musical chaos
✝️ Christian radio station
🎶 Pop songs → Christian lyrics
👻 Hot mess characters
💕 Ensemble romance
🇨🇦 1999 Ontario
🎭 Faith, forgiveness & found family
🎵 You REALLY need the soundtrack
🖤 MM Romance
This book reminded me of what would happen if Saved! and The Book of Mormon had a baby…and honestly? I was HERE for it.
As a non-Christian, this spiritual and not religious Armenian Jewish girl had a surprisingly wonderful time reading a bunch of hot messes try to save a failing Christian radio station (WWJD) by illegally sampling pop hits and turning them into Christian songs and a guy falling in love with a man with possibly mafia connections. I snorted out loud more than once, and there were also a few genuinely emotional moments I absolutely was not expecting.
But the soundtrack? THAT was the star of the show.
I was a little confused at first because I’ve read books with playlists before or listened to audiobooks with original music in it, but this one actually tells you when to stop reading and go listen to a specific song (I used the Apple Music playlist) and suddenly I wasn’t reading a book anymore...I was watching a musical in my head.
And honestly? It made me wish I was listening to the audiobook instead of reading the ebook.
That said, I think this story might actually work better as a stage musical. Having to stop reading to listen to a song (or postpone the song because I was somewhere I couldn’t listen) definitely slowed me down and may have taken away from some of the momentum.
Still, I really liked the story, loved the ridiculousness of these characters, and appreciated that underneath all the camp was a genuinely sweet message about figuring out your version of faith, love, acceptance, and forgiveness.
The music was chaotic, cheesy, sincere, and occasionally completely unhinged and somehow that was exactly the point.
I also love how this was Charlie's way of exploring his own complex history blending his upbringing in church with his identity as a gay man. I feel like these are stories that need to be written and read because too many people are having the same struggles and trying to figure out the same balance.
I want to thank Charlie David and BookSirens for the ARC.