Review-Signal to Noise

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 4 stars

RELEASE DATE: September 6, 2022

A literary fantasy about love, music and sorcery, set against the background of Mexico City.

Mexico City, 1988: Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said “I love you” with a mixtape. Meche, awkward and fifteen, has two equally unhip friends -- Sebastian and Daniela -- and a whole lot of vinyl records to keep her company. When she discovers how to cast spells using music, the future looks brighter for the trio. With help from this newfound magic, the three friends will piece together their broken families, change their status as non-entities, and maybe even find love...

Mexico City, 2009: Two decades after abandoning the metropolis, Meche returns for her estranged father’s funeral. It’s hard enough to cope with her family, but then she runs into Sebastian, and it revives memories from her childhood she thought she buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? What precipitated the bitter falling out with her father? And, is there any magic left?

MY THOUGHTS:

I received and e-arc from Net Galley for an honest review.

This is Silvia Moreno-Garcia's debut novel that came out in 2015. My first introduction to Silvia was in Mexican Gothic like so many thanks to the pandemic and the rise in supporting POC authors. I instantly fell in love with the way she creates her flawed characters. It's like a car accident, you can look away from.

She did the same with her M.C. Meche- now this book is told in multiple POV's but ultimately I felt this was Meche's story. Meche is a complicated character, deeply flawed and motivated purely by her emotions and events that affect her life she's not comfortable with. Like all teens she's dealing with hyper emotions and hormones with no one educating her or helping her understand them. So, she turns to magic to solve her problems.

At the core of this story is a romance between two of the characters as they try and understand one another. But the romance was borderline abuse and I didn't really connect with it. Meche was too flawed to get a real reaction of the love story for me.

What I loved the most about this story was the whole magic with vinyl's. It was a slow burn as she tries to figure out how her magic works. This was like The Craft and how sometimes people can lose themselves in it. Overall, I enjoyed the story.