Sunny Dae is a total nerd. He and his two best friends have a YouTube channel where they show people how to make DIY weapons for LARPing, but they never show their faces. Life is bad enough at school where they seem to be the butt of every joke, and Sunny is football star, Gunnar's favorite punching bag. Sunny's older brother Gray even dumped him when they moved to Rancho Ruby. Gray was in a metal band in high school and way too cool for his dorky little brother. Now he's off in Hollywood trying to make it as a musician leaving Sunny alone with their loving but inattentive parents.
Everything changes when Cirrus moves to town. She's lived all over the world with her real estate developer parents. She's beautiful and cool, and Sunny meets her before she has a chance to see who he really is at school. That's when he gets the idea to become someone else. Borrowing clothes and attitude from Gray's abandoned bedroom, Sunny tells Cirrus he's in a band.
Miraculously, it works! Cirrus is charmed by his confidence and metal persona. Now he just has to convince his two best friends to be in The Immortals with him and somehow hide the truth about his true personality at school. The plan is to play an epic number at the school talent show, and then somehow find a way to come clean. Cirrus is falling for lead guitar player Sunny. What if she doesn't like him when she knows the truth?
I have to be honest. I really struggled with this book. The pace was so slow, and Cirrus is just another mysterious cool girl with a weird name. She literally has no personality beyond "lived all over the world." I kept waiting for more, but it just isn't there. She's the elusive perfect girl rather than a real one. Plus, I really don't like the "lie about who you are to make someone fall in love with you" trope. It's a horrible betrayal, and it's almost never handled well. Sunny even gets upset with Cirrus for being upset with him when she finds out the truth and tells her she wouldn't have given him a second look as his true self. Well, I guess we'll never know because he lied! Also, it is not any girl's responsibility to like a guy just because he likes her. Ugh.
The parts about Sunny's relationship with his older brother were better, but that's a small part of the book. Even his two friends, Milo and Jamal, are like cardboard cutouts. They are in most of the scenes, but they don't really have personalities. I did enjoy the second half of the book more when Sunny begins to become introspective and come to terms with his own lack of self-esteem and his decision to be himself, all in, but it really took a long time to get there.
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