I’ve been making my way through Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s books and this has to make my top three. Signal to Noise is a story about friendship, first love, and second chances. It’s about signals getting crossed, missed chances, and silences. Keep reading this book review of Signal to Noise for my full thoughts.
Summary
Mexico City, 1988. Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said “I love you” with a mixtape. Meche, awkward and fifteen, discovers how to cast spells using music, and with her friends Sebastian and Daniela will piece together their broken families, and even find love…
Two decades after abandoning the metropolis, Meche returns for her estranged father’s funeral, reviving memories from her childhood she thought she buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? Is there any magic left?
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Signal to Noise is a story that hooked me with magical musical spells. I love the idea of music having a magical power, the ability to create magic. But what ended up keeping my attention was Meche’s relationship with her father and her friends. Signal to Noise is kicked off with the death of her father and so her story becomes about remembrance. How our parents fail us, how they are these imperfect beings both in death and alive. All the gaps between what we wanted and who they were, even after they’re gone. Signal to Noise is also about power and what happens when someone we love goes down a road we can’t follow.
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Do we follow them even though we know we shouldn’t? Or do we say something even if means losing them forever? Signal to Noise becomes a story committed to exploring character dynamics and the magic takes a backseat to the true heart of the book – the characters. The betrayals we enact on each other. How being a teen, memories, and the past all feel so bad in the moment. And how, years later, these moments age, mellow, and sour. Signal to Noise is about being re-immersed in the past. And figuring out not only how to move forward, but how to see the past.
Listening to the narration from Kyla Garcia is a perfect addition to the experience of Signal to Noise. So much of it is Meche’s character and how absorbed we are in ourselves and what we think matters most. Meche’s character came alive with Garcia’s narration.
Find Signal to Noise on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.