The Sound of Us

by Julie Hammerle

Still smarting after her best friend stabs her in the back, 17-year-old Kiki Nichols is inclined to spend all her time watching reruns of her favourite cult TV show, Project Earth, nerding out on Twitter with the other fans, and writing tragically corny song lyrics about love gone wrong. Her only chance to attend a music school is to win a coveted scholarship to Krause University at their pre-college summer voice program. Kiki's always had a natural talent for singing. So she's pretty confident she'll be a shoo-in for one of those scholarships. But it turns out that every other high school singer there is just as good, and maybe even better, than she is. And there are these Footloose extreme rules: like being in bed by curfew; singing only classical opera; and percussionists being at the bottom of the dating hierarchy - which is totally depressing for Kiki after her Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque basement run in with the nerdy secret drummer she can't stop thinking about. As Kiki begins to make friends, and (gasp!) actually prefer the company of real people to TV characters and Twitter avatars, her eye slips from the prize.
And it doesn't help that there is someone in the program reporting their misdeeds to the head of the department. Kiki is finally living, but it may be at the expense of her scholarship and the future she wants more than anything.

• ISBN10: 1633755029
• ISBN13: 9781633755024
• Publish Date: 7 June 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Entangled Publishing
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

This was quite a summer for Kiki! She had suffered quite a few blows at the hands of her former best friend, and was finally getting some distance from all that drama, but the summer music program was so much more than just an escape. Once there, Kiki was no longer the sidekick or the person cast in a supporting role. She was excelling and flourishing and being appreciated for all those things she thought were shortcomings.

I loved Kiki, and I was happy she was able to escape a sort of toxic friendship. When she would reflect on some of the things her former bestie said to her, it made me sad. But, it was wonderful to see her find her people, and to see her find her true passion.

I enjoyed all the technical music bits, the friendships, the Latin, the TV talk, and excellent soundtrack references (Ani!).

Overall: Fun and cute with quite a bit of substance.

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[liz089]

Read more about this review and others on my blog Freyja Eats Books **PLUS GIVEAWAYS**

REVIEW.
I was hooked after that pretty cover, so beautiful !! That combined with the description got me over completely. I got a movie feeling, you know? It sounds like this could be a movie, some sort of Pitch Perfect-ish and I’m really into those kind of movies. So, why not as a book?

And I had a lot of fun reading this book and getting to know the characters. We have the main character of course, who was likeable enough, and some other characters around her who were a lot of fun. It was kind of like watching a movie, and I flew through the pages.

Julie Hammerle has an awesome way of writing, easy to read and fun. She combined her world with some real stuff, like references to Buffy and Harry Potter. I always enjoy that. And together with a TV-show that I wish was real, Project Earth, and a kick-ass heroine.
But.. this book has a lot of flaws..

For me though, one of the major downsides to books about music is well.. You can’t hear it. You can’t make up your own mind about the music, while music is something that has a very personal taste and everybody thinks different about it. You only read about it from the narrator’s view, and follow her opinion. I would love to hear them sing haha, but well, books are books.

So about our main character, Kiki, I did like her.. but I didn’t love her. Sometimes she just made the most ridiculous choices that I did not get at all. **SPOILER ALERT** Like when you find out the guy you have been crushing on and wants to take you on a date has a girlfriend he forgot to mention? Big turn-off. I would not continue on with him and tempt yourself further, knowing that he has lied to you. Big time. For weeks and weeks, and you only found out by accident.. Who knows if he would ever have told you? And even worse, you know he has it in him and apparently has no trouble lying. Way to start a new relationship, based on lies. Nope. Not for me. **SPOILER END**

So well.. I did not love the romance. It was there and multiple love interests, but from the beginning it was clear she would really be going for just that one guy.. and I did not like that guy. He wasn’t good enough for her, and I did not like how it went. And at the ending it was just MEH..

I did not like the parents, and I could not fully understand why they behaved like that. Even though she started a lot of hobbies and did not finish them, it is still your child. You don’t go down on your child like that, acting like she can’t do anything and give her the feeling she is a big failure. You’re supposed to be supportive. And yes, supposed to be doesn’t mean that everybody actually does that.. But still, I found it kind of weird how they acted.. And would have liked to know more about why they did that.. I did not find this sufficient explanation.

The same for the top teacher at Krauss, the supposed best friend Beth, Mary.. They all have some weird messed-up relationships that I do not get.

And even though this book was funny and light, and most certainly fun to read, it missed a lot of background. People acted in certain ways (like the parents) but I did not find any reason behind it.. And I missed that. I need that. I need to know why people act the way they do.. otherwise it is just weird and unnecessary and make for some really messed-up life.

FINAL THOUGHTS.

This was a nice and funny read. I was entertained, and if you don’t look close enough it is just fine. But I am getting more and more critical with the more I read.. It had a lot of flaws and because of that I didn’t love it. It missed a lot background, character development and the romance was not to my liking. This is more of an in-between read, fun for a while and then you can go on to the better stuff. So yeah, I can’t give this more than 3 Freyja’s, and that’s me being in a good mood.