“Signal to Noise” follows a group of three friends in Mexico City when they discover they can cast spells through music in 1988. The book goes between then and 2009 when Meche returns home after the death of her father. The story was addicting and I loved to see Meche process her past when she comes home. I loved to see the drama-filled reconnection with her former friends, and that was the thing that kept me reading at such a quick pace. I wanted to see how it ended!

In the flashbacks, Meche becomes more unlikable towards the second half of the book, but I always found her character to be interesting even if I didn’t like her. That being said, because she was so horrible in the past, and in the present seemed to blame her friends for what happened rather than take any responsibility, the ending really was not enough. Meche needed more of an emotional arc than she had. Because the emotional arc wasn’t there it was hard to believe that the ending of the story. Which is disappointing because the rest of the book was really good! I wish it was 50 pages longer to develop the ending more.

All that being said, this was another interesting and addicting read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This felt like a guilty pleasure book, the build-up of plot almost lost me in the middle. Overall, quite good. 3/4 stars ( )

So, so good. ( )

Really not my thing.

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

This is the story of Meche, the woman and the girl, in Mexico city. As a women she returns for her father's funeral and reluctantly deals with family and friends. As a girl, she struggles her awkward way through high school, ignoring homework and generally not getting along with people. Her family is dysfunctional, her friends are weird, and she learns how to do magic.

I struggled so much to like this book. It is well structured, and the writing is smooth and often very fluid. But lord, the characters are so trite and tedious. The main character, Meche, is sulky and nerdy and the same as every other math-obsessed, sulky nerd in every other teen book. The problem is, she's the same as an adult! She's utterly insufferable.

Her friends are the same-- the poor kid who escapes toxic masculinity into books and gets called names for it. The chubby rich girl princess whose parents (gasp!) love her and don't want her to fall in with a bad crowd.

Ugh.

It took me forever to finish this tiny book because I kept rolling my eyes and shaking my head at the stupid, stupid kids who were just as stupid and clumsy as they grew up. I liked nothing about a single character in this book, except that Meche's father has pretty good taste in music. ( )