Reviews with content warning for Slavery - The Violin Conspiracy

The way Brendan Slocumb writes whenever Ray picks up the violin is utterly enchanting. You could omit the words ‘Ray picked up the violin’ completely and know just by the way the words pick you up and start dancing around you. I listened to the audiobook, which has violins playing between each part. It is a wild story; parts of it were hard to believe, and other parts were rather predictable.

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whatcassiedid's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I've been thinking about this all day since finishing it, it's going to stick with me for a while. It's very interesting to me that while the inciting incident of the story is the theft of the violin, it sets off a chain of events and back and forth in Ray's history that by the time the story got back to the stolen violin, I almost didn't need to know the whodunnit of it all because it was such an intricate story. Interesting stuff on property and ownership that I don't really have the words to discuss. There are a couple instances of police brutality as well as a very brief but graphic scene of violence towards slaves, so read with care

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keato's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I usually hate when there’s music in an audiobook, I loved it in this book. It did physically pain me that I couldn’t hear Ray play. So much talk of how great he was and I just wanted to hear it for myself 😭. The book started a bit slow but once the flashbacks started I was hooked. I have not felt the type of all encompassing cold fury that

the Marx

made me feel in sooooooo long. I wanted to cry. The narrator did such a great job making them hateable, and honestly just did a killer job in general. This book took over my entire life and I could not stop thinking about it. My only couple critiques are that

the ending was a bit anticlimactic (but I’m so glad it wrapped up well and seamlessly without causing more stress lol) and the MC was almost too perfect. Always said and did the right thing, and was 200% unaffected by fame

. A good plot with hateable villains GETS me though.

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msennflinn's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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ukponge's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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ireanirean's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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livforreading's review against another edition

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informative inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5

I enjoyed this one! Definitely needed to audiobook to get through it, because even as someone who used to play violin, I just wasn’t so so interested in some of the technical musical stuff. The mystery wasn’t very hard to solve, and some of the characters were pretty archetypical. I loved the messages about being Black in classical music, even if the messages were a bit heavy handed at times. Overall, a very plotty book that I enjoyed listening to because it was easy to follow and filled with drama

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tetcha's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

This was described to me as a mystery/thriller but I felt like the mystery aspect was very predictable. Despite that, the book was still a great read; I rooted for Ray to overcome all of the obstacles and racism he faced along his way and enjoyed the peek into a classical music world of which I knew nothing about.

Instead of mystery lovers, I would recommend this to anyone who like a good family saga or coming of age drama instead.

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