A teen girl loses her sister in a car accident and is sent to Hawaii to stay with her aunt while her mother deals with the loss of her youngest daughter. Rumi works through her grief and anger while making new friends and trying to find her own voice as he redefines her life without her best friend and sister.

It's a little slow to get going - the first third is a bit heavy on Rumi's angst, although that's also understandable, I guess - but it deals well with responding to loss as such a young age. Overall I enjoyed it. ( )

"Music helps a Washington state teenager overcome guilt and grief after the death of her beloved younger sister.

After a car accident that takes the life of Rumi Seto’s younger sister, Lea, Rumi feels guilt about surviving and is certain that her mother wishes Rumi had died instead. With her mother checked out and blank with sorrow, an angry, hardened Rumi is sent to stay with her Aunty Ani in Hawaii, where she meets a host of local characters, including Kai, a charismatic half-Korean/half-Japanese boy. Rumi also spends some time with Mr. Watanabe, her aunt’s gruff elderly neighbor, who has dealt with his own tragedy. Eventually, as Rumi is able to find her way back to the music she and Lea had shared and write the song that she believes she owes her sister, she becomes able to fully grieve. She also makes a discovery that helps reconcile her with her mother. Rumi’s mother is half-Japanese/half-Hawaiian, and her estranged father is white. Accurately reflecting the setting, the book is populated with a host of hapa (biracial) and Asian- and Pacific Islander–American characters. One subplot follows Rumi as she becomes comfortable with her aromantic and asexual feelings. Convincing local details and dialogue, masterful writing, and an emotionally cathartic climax make this book shine.

A strikingly moving book about teenage grief. (Fiction. 12-18)" www.kirkusreviews.com, A Kirkus Starred Review

I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did, also didn't expect it to emotionally wreck me at the end. I have been missing Alice Oseman's books but she's on a writing hiatus so I sought out her book recommendations. This was high on her rec list and I can see why. It's a character-driven story that is very friendship-focussed with an incredibly insightful and raw take on grief and family dynamics.

The main character, Rumi, loves her younger sister, Lea, intensely but she also had to parent Lea because their dead beat father left them and their mother had to work long hours. Rumi both adored and was jealous of how easy Lea went through life being charismatic, talented, straight, and lovable while Rumi is cranky, socially-awkward, and asexual/demiromantic. Then Lea died in a car crash and their mother sent Rumi to Hawaii to live with an aunt. While processing her grief, rage, and survivor's guilt, she developed an unlikely friendship with a grumpy old neighbour with an equally grumpy old dog, and was adopted by a beautiful boy, Kai, and his friends.

It is a beautiful book about grief, love, and music. Everyone should read this. It will break you in the best way. ( )

This was an interesting read for me, as an only child I I learned something about the range of emotion that Rumi had as she started to work through her grief for a sibling that she felt so close to. Something that I'll never experience. On top of that Rumi is the first character that I ever read about that was asexual and watching her work her way at least partially through that was eye opening. ( )

This book had me SOBBING ( )