review 1: This book was terrific. Beautiful homeless Sage mets handsome, to good to be true, Derek on the streets of San Fransisco. Both are homeless and both sing on street corners to eat every day.Derek talks Sage into entering a singing contest with a chance to win $500,000 dollars and a recording contract. The thing is... It's in New York City. They travel across the country while meeting some great and not so great people.Some of the friends they make on the road and during the competition will have you laughing your butt off.....I won't spoil the end!!! review 2: ** I received an Advanced Reading Copy of this book in return for an honest review.Two homeless young street performers join forces and travel across the country to try out for a talent show that could cha... morenge their lives.Seventeen-year-old Sage has been on the streets in San Francisco for four months after escaping her dysfunctional home. Using her guitar and vocal talent, she makes enough to keep herself fed--barely. Sleeping is another matter. She spends most nights traveling from spot to spot, trying to catch a couple of hours here or there. Thanks to some friends she's made, she's able to take showers every couple of days. Life is hard, but she's surviving. At least until another singer shows up on the same block she's been working. Derek is handsome and talented, and he pulls in more cash than Sage ever managed. She's sure he's going to put her right out of business. When she confronts Derek, he tells her he's only sticking around a week or so and offers to buddy up with her and split the take. It takes some convincing, but Sage agrees and soon she and Derek build a solid partnership. She finds out he's heading to New York to audition for a well-known TV singing competition and ends up going with him. The journey and the competition dredge up all sorts of personal demons that test their fragile friendship.LESS THAN NOTHING is lodged firmly within Sage's POV. It's a nice seat for readers. She's mature, complicated and yet still innocent in many ways. Derek is a teen dream, but he's got more baggage than most forty-somethings. The attraction between Sage and Derek is built up gradually. Sage's tendency to over think combined with Derek's secretiveness exerts a nice breaking force. As close as the two get, there's an invisible boundary between them. This means great tension for the reader.The author also does a good job creating interesting secondary characters--both friends that help the couple along the way and predators that mean them harm. Details of the characters' day-to-day lives are well handled. Readers gets a good sense of life on the streets of a big city. Sage and Derek's journey to New York is shown in vivid scenes that give a genuine sense of physical movement as well providing plenty plot advancement and character development.For a New Adult novel, there's a refreshing lack of sexual content, yet also plenty of emotion and sexual tension. I was constantly surprised by how REAL Sage and Derek seemed. There isn't much to criticize about LESS THAN NOTHING. The last few chapters are a bit rushed compared to the bulk of the book. Though not completely resolved, the story ends with enough strings tied that it could be a stand-alone. On one hand, I'm glad it's the first of a trilogy. There's a lot of material left to work with and explore. On the other hand, too often I've seen the beautiful honesty and emotion of a book watered down as the author twists and stretches it into a series. I have high hopes that R.E. Blake won't take this misstep. Guess, I'll have to wait and see! less
