Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A magical book in all the noisiest ways
Some books feel like I read a long time ago, or maybe in a past life.
I felt like that with this one. Not the strongest instance of that feeling I've had, but does it have to be the strongest instance of a sense of transient echoes of magical memory to be significant?
No. That's the answer.
It felt like it whispered the story to me. Very pretty.
The story did everything. It was heartwarming and heartbreaking alternately, and it ended in a genre I wasn't expecting, but the catharsis was so good. Strong novel.
Signal to Noise is a trans-generational family drama about kids who do better than their parents. It's about growing up and growing out of the traps our parents leave us. It's also about the many iterations of love. In the end, it's a hopeful book, but in order to have hope our souls must be tempered by the heat of everything else life stacks against us. Moreno-Garcia delves into all those stacks. It's a fight from beginning to end, but a fight that matters because it's a fight for a realness, and it makes progress in its fighting. There is a point to the fight.
This book described badly: Meche sorts her dad's literally magic record collection.
I recommend it for anyone who likes Neverwhere and wants something a little more well-constructed and relatable.
Also, if you're a music fan, prepare to go to school as Silvia Moreno-Garcia spreads a liberal layer of way too much music knowledge on your ignorant self.
I rate it a vinyl Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale out of a cassette Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale.