Signal to Noise

By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Narrated by: Ana Bayat

Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's Summary

Mexico City, 1988. Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said "I love you" with a mix tape.

Meche, awkward and 15, has two equally unhip friends - Sebastian and Daniela - and a whole lot of vinyl records to keep her company. When she discovers how to cast spells using music, the future looks brighter for the trio. The three friends will piece together their broken families, change their status as non-entities, and maybe even find love.

Mexico City, 2009: Two decades after abandoning the metropolis, Meche returns alone for her estranged father's funeral.

It's hard enough to cope with her family, but then she runs into Sebastian, reviving memories from a childhood she thought she buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? What precipitated the bitter falling out with her father? Is there any magic left?

©2015 Silvia Moreno-Garcia (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Maybe I’m missing something...

I found the dialogue to be vapid and painfully boring. The central core of the story is very neat with the music and magic, but I don’t have a clear picture of the characters at all, and I really felt that the plot was lacking—I kept waiting for things to take off, but they never did.

The narrator was lacking emotion but it’s hard to say how much was her vs the writing. A disappointing book to me, but perhaps I missed some magic in there.

Great read

With all the dehumanizing of Mexico by the current US government, it’s important, I think, to read novels & stories & memoirs that are by and about Mexico & the culture and many many people that call her home. It fights back against propaganda in a very effective way & I think this will be the first book of many I focus on the rest of the year. Reading fosters empathy and compassion even when the news or government tries to strip you of those things.

I really enjoyed the story & characters. Honestly, the characters are the most vivid aspect of this novel & usually I prefer more plot-focused fantasy however this worked better for this particular book & I really loved reading it. I’m glad I went with the audiobook version (available only on Audible, unfortunately but Ana Bayat does a wonderful job) because the characters felt more real & like Meche was sitting next to me telling me her coming of age story. The magic is perhaps the most realistic form of magic I’ve seen in fantasy realism. Definitely a book worth checking out!

Heroine not sympathetic enough for me.

I had a hard time with the fact that neither the narrator nor the author made the main character sympathetic enough for me. So by the end of the book I didn’t really care about her personal growth.

Conflicted

I really do love Moreno-Garcia's writing style and her unique story ideas however I do not care for her liberal use of the f word in this story. I get it they're teenagers, whatever, it rubs me wrong and I feel that it drops her creativity down a notch. Just a personal preference.

Loved the book

I have read a lot of Moreno-Garcia’s later work and was ready to venture into the early days. Signal to Noise did not disappoint. I like the the characters are figuring themselves out, they don’t know what the want, and they make plenty of mistakes. It is true to youth. My only complaint is that the narrator had a very mature voice and I think missed some of the youthful intonations and sentiments in the writing. She had a beautiful voice but maybe not right for this book.

Realistic Love and Magic

Sometimes those who behave in the most unlovable ways are the ones who need the most love. In this well formulated tail, the reader is captivated by realistic protagonist (Mercedes, “Meche”) and characters. The reader can experience the rawness of love and complicated relationships during two transformative periods of Meche’s life. The narrator is perfect for this book because her genuine accent and perfect pronunciation of Spanish words makes for smooth traveling to Mexico City across the two time periods.