Hi friends, happy Friday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m going to be posting my review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novel, Signal to Noise.

Signal to Noise by: Silvia Moreno-Garcia: When Meche’s father passes away, she finds herself back in Mexico City after two decades away. Now that she’s home, she’s immersed in the life she left behind; the broken homes, her two best friends, Sebastian and Daniela, and the magic they shared where they used music to cast spells. Years later, Meche wonders if the magic is still there. Told in a back and forth tale letting the reader piece together the truth of the past that has caught up with the present. This was a such an intriguing read with so many elements that came together in the end. The reader could tell that this was Moreno-Garcia’s debut novel because as much as this was such a good novel, it lacked what we’ve come to expect from her. As a reader who has read her more recent works, it’s easy to see how much stronger and tighter her writing has gotten. This felt longer than it needed to be; there was a lot of dead space in the way characters interacted with one another, which kind of left them feeling stiff and wooden. They did have a range of emotions that they emitted that the reader felt, but they felt too rigid a lot of the time. The magic plots were so well integrated in the story, but we wished we’d understood it better. The idea was great, but it felt half-baked; if there had been more explanation on how it worked and less on the character interaction that felt unnecessary, this could have read better. This was still fast-paced, which had the reader flying through it but not as engaged as they could have been. This still ended on a good note and the reader still really liked this as a concept novel. The characters were really well written because they truly felt like teenagers. The reader couldn’t stand Meche for most of the novel; we understood why she was the way she was, but even in her adult point of view she read just like her teenage self and that drove the reader insane a bit. We wanted her to have grown up but all she did was keep grudges and be mean; by the end she mellowed out a bit, but it took too long to get to that point. The side characters were developed enough that we got a sense of who they were in Meche’s life, but not enough to get a sense of who they were as their own person. They were compelling enough, but the reader wanted more. Overall, this was such a great idea for a novel, just knowing Moreno-Garcia is capable of so much more, this felt like a bit of a letdown; nonetheless this was still worth reading and quite enjoyable.