The tension is what this book centers around, and it's enough to make you hold your breath and hope for the best. But also, Phillips writes about music, and does it very well. I haven't read every novel ever written about music, but I've read a lot, and only a few were actually worth anything. Phillips portrays music honestly, without painting the songwriter as an Adonis or glorifying the groupie side of things. He focuses on the true grit of the music, the passion behind it, the passion created from hearing it.