This book was a gem for me. I thankfully discovered it through NGs BookBuzz selections earlier this year where it was featured with excerpts and then a link to selecting the ARC was included.
I love the cover and hope that the actual final cover is the same or close.
The story was a sweet, middle school tale of a music class being instructed to come up with a song that represents them personally. Their teacher wants to create a “playlist” for their class that they can take with them that will remind them of who they were at this age. Brilliant idea. Obviously, many eras and genres of music will need to be explored and I appreciated the bouncing around from one type of music to another for this reason, recreating a true classroom feeling.
There was diversity with both different ethnicities and LGBTQ representation, which felt authentic to a middle school class, especially in the arts. But the love interests were awkward and sweet, as expected for this age as well.
I completely enjoyed the mentioning of the various artists representing the various genres and laughed at how some of the “classics” were standards when I was a kid. I made my own playlist by looking up the songs or artists that I was less familiar with and listening to their music as I read. This was a very pleasant way to read this ARC.
My only negatives are in formatting: the digital ARC was very difficult to follow because the dialogue was not always in sequence correctly and the artwork was small. And I read this on an iPad Pro, so it has a fairly large screen and well lit. I know this will be fixed for the final physical release but just as a point in reviewing, it was difficult.
Thank you for introducing me to Maria Callas and her stunning voice. I have heard some of the titles she has covered by other singers and wow. She is amazing.
#Operatic #NetGalley
