A review by wardenred
It Sounds Like This by Anna Meriano

emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I thought I was doing something right, something that would make me Section Leader Material, something I could write about in my college essays. Now I’m afraid I just did something I’m going to regret.

A refreshing, beautifully diverse quick read. I really liked Yasmín as a protagonist. She's flawed and sympathetic in equal measure, and I really enjoyed witnessing her journey as she became more introspective and started figuring out who she was, what she wanted and why. She really goes through considerable growth, and I'm here for it. I also really related to her struggle to balance what the adults in her life and her peers expected of her, and I liked her relationship with music. 

In terms of plot, there's a lot going on here, between the marching band, the online harassment plot, Yasmín's struggles at home as she feels she has to manage her Mom/her Mom's tense relationship with her sibling Ellen, the pressure to succeed at school, and more. The storyline that runs through all of this and strings all the small plots together is Yasmín's relationship with her (ex) best friend Sofia, and it really was my favorite part of the book, from the start to the resolution. It's painful in many ways, and kind of bittersweet, and both of them messed up so much and were so unfair to each other in different ways—and the way it played out in the end feels really genuine.

I'm probably not the best audience to appreciate all the nuances of the school band setting; it's a rather unfamiliar subject for me, and while it's very clear the author is passionate about it, I did sometimes feel like the story got bogged down in the marching band details. Perhaps I would consider it a strength of the book if I was more invested in the subject, though, who knows! As it was, while there were those "bogged down" moments, I can say there was also a fair amount of the interesting interpersonal stuff injected into them, or some cool turns of phrase spicing up the band dialogue/Yasmín's narration. So I never really felt bored, simply a bit overwhelmed.
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