The Infinite Noise (The Bright Sessions, #1)

by Lauren Shippen

[dragononabook]

New and improved review (after listening to the podcast and rereading, with audiobook)!

I first read The Infinite Noise, a spinoff novel based on the Bright Sessions podcast, in February of this year, and really enjoyed it but felt it was a little less than I hoped for. I hadn’t listened to the podcast yet, meaning I didn’t have the same kind of hindsight and contextual knowledge, so while the book reads well as a standalone, I was lacking some of the context that makes it so good.

Fast forward a few months and I decided to listen to the podcast, and fell down a deep hole of obsession, prompting a reread of The Infinite Noise as it follows two of my favourite characters, Caleb Michaels and Adam Hayes. Now that I had listened to the podcast, I knew the story and what happened outside Caleb and Adam’s POVs, which mean that the ending, which I had been disappointed by the first time, was a lot clearer. Listening to the audiobook was also really cool, because Caleb’s chapters are narrated by Briggon Snow, who voices him in the podcast, so his character really shows in those chapters and it was awesome to listen to. I’m a little sad that they didn’t have Alex Gallner, who voices Adam, do his chapters but I still liked the narrator they had, although I had to speed his parts up.

Caleb is possibly one of my favourite characters ever. He’s a high school jock football player, but he’s also an empath who experiences too many feelings, which is one of the most awesome trope reversals ever. He’s both a normal teenager and an Atypical, and Lauren Shippen balances these two aspects of his personality really well. He also does a lot of growing throughout the book, which is generally what happens when you spend a significant portion of said book in therapy. Adam is also an excellent character, also up there on my favourite characters ever list. He’s got depression, and I think the way this was handled was done really well in terms of showing how depression isn’t just something that goes away when you make a friend and start being happier. He’s also snarky and really smart and if he were real, I would want to be his friend so badly because he’s just that cool.

Now I’ve talked about them individually, I need to gush about Adam-and-Caleb. The inherent excellence of their emotions balancing each other. The iconic line “You keep me green”, said by Caleb in reference to his emotions feeling yellow, Adam’s being blue, and feeling most happy when they overlap and become green. I love this so much, because it’s the perfect balance of romantic and wonderfully inrealistic, and also dumb teenage boys existing. They’ve really got a special relationship and I’m really looking forward to seeing them both in The College Tapes, the spinoff podcast following the two of them as they go to (separate) colleges. I’m definitely going to be ignoring the break-up theories because my heart can’t handle that.

I really like how the plot is a good balance between Caleb figuring out his powers and dealing with normal high school things, him and Adam going from classmates to friends to being in a relationship, and the bigger threats present. I think the latter plot points are slightly clearer in the podcast, because the perspective of other characters is involved, but being able to process the last half of the book a second time really helped me like the ending more, especially know I know more about the motivations of characters. If you want a little more context, read my next sentence, and if you don’t, skip it. Adam was more right about his parents than you’ll expect, and that’s something I think would have made the ending feel more satisfying if I knew it.

One of the things that drew me in most about this book, especially the first time and even more so after listening to the podcast, was the way that Atypical abilities were approached. They’re kind of fantastical, but approached in a very scientific way. Issues with abilities are treated in very scientific ways, including therapy, and in general the way that Caleb’s empathy was approached was very concrete and felt almost possible in our world. This is also something that’s going to be explored in future novels (there are two more coming out) so if you like superpowers but in a scientif way, this is definitely a book and a world to check out.

Haven’t listened to the podcast but are interested? Read it! Have listened the podcast? Read it! Does the audiobook sound awesome? Listen to that! I just really like this book, and I think it’s probably something that a lot of people would like because of all the different elements that Lauren Shippen brings into this book, as well as the loveable characters and the interesting concept. Now, I’m going to go flop on my bed and think about how much I love this universe. Let me know if you pick this book up!

Original review can be found on my blog here.