This re-release of Moreno-Garcia's latest book might be my first introduction to their work, but I've got a feeling it won't be my last. This is a coming-of-age story that stands out amongst the rest, following Meche, an awkward and anxious teenager who finds magic in music along with their friends, casting spells and enchantments to find love and happiness in their broken homes and hearts.

Full of rich symbolism and deep meaning, this story is undeniably evocative and deeply nostalgic. Full of utterly relatable and cringe-inducing reminders of what its like to be a lost teenager, the characters are unlikeable, unreliable and moody - and because of that they're exactly perfect. A spellbinding read that is definitely a sign of more amazing things to come.

I love some of Moreno-Garcia’s more recent works, so I was disappointed that I didn’t enjoy her first novel. I suppose it goes to show how much an author’s craft can develop over time. Or perhaps this just wasn’t for me. In Signal To Noise I didn’t feel hooked by the story, there wasn’t a solid sense of place (although, there was an impressive sense of time due to music references), and I felt myself zoning out a few times throughout the novel. I almost DNF’d a couple times but stuck it out because it’s Silvia Moreno-Garcia! I wished some of the side characters were more thoughtfully developed and I found the ending cute, but predictable, thus disappointing.

A lovely cover to accompany a fresh reprint. I have enjoyed everything that I have picked up from Moreno-Garcia and this was not an exception, however, the book is notably an earlier writing from the now-established writer. A little more young adult than the darker fiction titles of her more modern release, Signal to Noise is a fun release that will do well in the Halloween lead-up.

Thank you to Netgalley and Rebellion Publishing for the digital galley in exchange for my honest review.

The cover of the reprint is really beautiful and would make a great edition to the Silvia Moreno-Garcia shelf.

I’ve been chasing the feeling I felt when reading Mexican Gothic for the first time, and I’ve made my way through almost all of the author’s backlog, and while she writes a variety of genres spanning a lot of different stories, I never quite find what I’m looking for.

Signal to Noise wasn’t what I was looking for but I did enjoy the time I spent on it.

I really enjoyed Meche and her friends as characters, but the writing leaned a lot more toward tell rather than show. I prefer the author’s later works, but it’s very interesting to see so much growth from this first novel.

I don’t have much to say, as it is a reprint of a debut but it’s a fun duel narrative spanning 20 years. Magic, mayhem, the trials and tribulations of being an outcast in high school.

I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

I think this is now the 4th book of Silvia’s that I’ve read, and still she manages to surprise me every time. I don’t think I’ve ever read an author that has quite so much range, and Signal to Noise is that the latest example of that. It’s unlike the other books I’ve read by this author so far, and yet is still just as strong as the rest of her work.

This book is also just quite unique in general, and I don’t think I’d ever read anything quite like it! I really enjoyed being introduced to a setting that I simply have not read much in yet, and I loved seeing how much the setting played a role, both in the story and in the effect it had on Meche. The writing supported this setting extremely well too, and I could feel the presence of the city in the story. I also really loved how magic was used in this story, and while it’s often hard for me to find urban fantasy that really works for me, this is a great example of what I do love about this genre. It blends the contemporary themes and aspects so well with magic, without either taking too much of the story. I also loved how magic was tied to something so personal to Meche, and that it takes different shapes for everyone.

The narration of this book was also fantastic, and I really enjoyed the flipping back and forth between the past and present. I did have a slight preference for the present, though it also took up less space in the story, but that’s largely because Meche was sometimes so hard to read in the past. She’s a classic teenager, but amplified by her anger and by her newfound magic, and it was easy to get frustrated with her, especially at the end. But even through it all, I found myself understanding her and rooting for her, even if I wouldn’t have made the same decisions.

Overall, I adored this book, and I can’t wait to continue on reading more of Silvia’s works. I wasn’t entirely sure if I would love this one as much as the others, but in the end, it surprised me!

Signal to Noise weaves together a love of music and the magic and misadventures of being young, dumb, and in love.

“Guys, I just want to remind you I have to be home by seven,” Daniela said. “I’m also not allowed to do any Satanic stuff.”

At times hilarious, this book reminded me of a goofy and more caring The Craft, as three friends form a magic circle and let lose some magic without realising the consequences.

But that's where the comparison ends. Signal to Noise confronts past hurts and broken families, the reconstruction of damaged relationships and finding peace with the past.

Moreno-Garcia again writes a fantastic unlikeable and prickly main character who you can't help but love.

Signal to Noise is another fantastic book from this author and I'm so glad that it's getting an updated version and a second chance.

Come for the music magic, stay for the healing of past hurts.

Thank you Rebellion, Solaris and NetGalley for the arc. All opinions are my own.

“Magic gets you what you want, but it doesn’t solve your problems.”

“And that was that. You don’t get to rewind your life like a tape and splice it back together, pretending it never knotted and tore, when it did and you know it did.”

Some of my favorite books are ones that involve magic or music, and this one weaves them both together in a story that is unique and fun and heartbreaking. I’m still new to Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work, only having read her most recent novel, so it was really fun going back and reading her debut!

Things I loved:

🎶 The protagonist is so layered and complex! She’s got a prickly exterior and biting wit that she uses as a wall around her squishy heart, and she often says/does the opposite of what she wants in order to protect her emotions. Deep down she has good intentions, even if she’s a bit volatile and flawed.

🎵 The protagonist’s family is unstable and dysfunctional, and there are many complicated feelings that go with that.

🎶 Music as magic just made my heart sing. I think most of us can relate to the power of a song or album, so the use of music as a conduit for magic was wonderful! (Also, the plethora of songs and artists mentioned throughout the book made for a fabulous six-hour playlist.)

🎵 I enjoyed the back and forth between timelines, learning gradually how the events came to take place.

🎶 We never learn all of the rules of magic in this world, but we do see the pros and cons of using it, as well as the effects power can have on people. Magic seems to be as fluid as the people using it.


In the end, this is much more than a potential romance. It’s about regret and the sting of things left unsaid. It’s a love letter to the power of music. It’s a coming of age story and an overcoming of past hurts

Overall I really enjoyed this book, and I’m excited to continue reading other books by the author! Thanks to Netgalley and Rebellion Publishing for the advanced updated edition of this book!

I didn't realize this was a re-release at first and was absolutely shocked to find that this was a debut novel?? I don't know how much the original text has been changed/edited for the new edition, but if this is Moreno-Garcia's debut then she's an insta-buy for me from now on.

The writing is so tangible it kicked me straight back in time, and these teenagers felt so real it ached. Meche is brilliantly sharp, possessive, and selfish. But she's also determined and protective, and she loves people fiercely. Even soft,
kind Daniela has a strength of her own.
Moreno-Garcia's characters are so complex, and her women are unapologetically strong in ways that are human of not always appealing.

What can I say about Sebastián. I love him and he's a perfect foil for Meche. Childhood friends to lovers has never been so spicy (or so heartbreaking).

Speaking of heartbreak, Meche's relationship with her dad was gutting to read. The author masterfully weaves timelines and multiple perspectives together. The adult POVs in 1988 were particularly wrenching- all doing their best, all wrapped too tightly in their own heads and their own narratives to be what their children needed.

I've gone for most of this review without talking about the magic because the characters were so strong that honestly, the magic took a more subtle background roll. For a fantasy novel, it doesn't feel like a book about magic. And that's OK. I didn't want to know more about the system- as Meche points out, there's no "magic police" coming to arrest our characters for experimenting. It's private, and intimate, and instinctive, and it fits perfectly in the atmosphere Moreno-Garcia has created.

5/5, one of my favorites this year, and the new cover is stunning!!

I’ve been a fan of SMG writing for awhile now so when I saw this was available I crossed all my fingers that I would be able to read the ARC. I’m so happy this book didn’t disappoint once again. One of my favorite things to do is make playlists for books I love so the amount of musical influence in this book was right up my alley. This will be a re-read for me for sure!

SILVIA DOES IT AGAIN, I know it’s just a reprint but I was so excited for this arc and it didn’t disappoint. Intriguing, captivating, and immediately able to hook. The writing style is so classic and easy to understand. The characters are well developed and the story makes sense in the oddest of ways. Thank you for the opportunity to read!

I really enjoyed this book! It's a great read, especially for music fans and lovers of all things 80s, but it also has YA angst, magic, and romance to boot.

This is the second book that I've read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. My main criticism of Mexican Gothic (2020) was that I couldn't get a feel for the main character (Noemí), but that is absolutely not the case for Signal to Noise. The book is written in the 3rd person and mainly follows Meche (our MC) but Moreno-Garcia gives us little snippets from at least four other characters to flesh out their perspectives as well.

The story is told in a dual timeline: 1988 and 2009. I love this structure because we get to see the trio of friends (Meche, Sebastián, and Daniela) as they were at 15, where they've ended up in their mid-thirties, and we're putting the pieces of the story together as we go.

You should definitely listen to the music as you're reading this book, so check out this public playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/64UhZuibxl4FBep1FpWwrZ?si=ca8bd8ccc67944bc

Thanks to Rebellion for sending me an e-arc on NetGalley in advance of the reprint! Glad this book is getting the love it deserves.

Signal to Noise is the third book I’ve read by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and it just confirms my feeling that I want to read all her books. Signal to Noise is about Meche’s return home to a place she left a long time ago angry with everyone. It is about friendship, magic, and music. I loved uncovering exactly what had happened between Meche, Sebastian, and Daniela all those years ago, and how their relationships would play out in the contemporary moment, following the death of Meche’s father.
One of the things I love about Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work which is highlighted in Signal to Noise is the way she creates characters. Her characters are often flawed in a way that feels entirely and heartbreakingly normal. Meche is exasperating, but in a way that rings very true. I also loved that Meche was so-so about reading, and the continual reminders of acne.
Signal to Noise uses magic in an intriguing way. I initially thought that the way magic worked could have been deepened a bit, but ultimately the uncertainty of the process mirrors so many other kinds of uncertainty that it fits well into the world of the novel.
I felt like Daniela, the third of the trio was sidelined a bit. Meche seemed to acknowledge this eventually, but so much of the teenage drama was about Sebastian and Meche, and I wish there had been a bit more sustained reconnecting in the later timeline with Daniela as well.

I thought the writing was beautiful, the characters rich with life experience, pain, pleasure and growth, and the moments based in the 1980s were wonderful to read.

Signal To Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
is a Historical-Fiction/Sci-Fi Fantasy that begins in a present day timeline. Meche is reluctantly returning to the Mexico City neighborhood of her childhood for her grandfather's funeral. She has nostalgic 1980's flashbacks to good and bad times with her friends Sebastian and Daniela. The trio is creating their own culture of magic using dark story sources from Shakespeare to National Geographic, their favorite grandmother's muddled memories, and any quirky phrase in a book or song that has imaginary possibilities. Oh, and it's the 80's, of course, so the spellbinding musical resources to layer in seem to be everywhere on radios, walkmans, and turntables. In the 80's timeline you will navigate street life, school life, and 'strange' family lives. Escaping with friends is the default survival strategy- but the end goal for Meche seems to be experimenting with ways that magic can passive aggressively solve those everyday problems that become more and more overwhelming. The growing power of magic seems to be turning her to the dark side. Yes, her magic is getting out of control.. The storytelling has the YA feel of an easy flow, a quick pace, and plenty of teen coming of age interactions. The undercurrent of a friends vs more than friends relationship straddles both timelines between Mech and Sebastian. So does the mystery of who Mech's father really was and who the friends and their old neighborhood have become. And yes, the hurts that remain from something unspoken that happened…This story confirmed my musical belief that there is a song for everything!

I enjoyed several clever writing strategies in the book, including parallel jumps between up to three ongoing scenes in the same timelines (like movies do), and regular switches from one scene to another for the same character (or different characters) with zero transition but context clues that anchor your location moving you forward in time around in space at a quick pace. Fresh and youthful with a mystical urban feel. I received an ARC of Rebellion Publishing's new edition of the prolific Moreno-Garcia's debut in exchange for this fair review.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book*

"Signal to Noise" is Silvia Moreno-Garcia's first novel which is now being republished. It takes place in Mexico City, in 1988, when our protagonist Mecha, an unhappy and complicated girl, and her friends are just teenagers and discover magic. The other parts of the novel take place in 2009 when Mecha returns to Mexico City after two decades. While the novel is about teenage angst, it is also about one's love for music, it is quite the love letter to the music of the 60s, be it jazz or rock. I knew I had to love this novel when I found that King Crimson is the perfect music to hex somebody and that (cheesily enough) Procul Harem is the perfect music for a love spell. I loved that part of it and the magic system was interesting too. I even enjoyed the quite complicated and often useless fights between characters and I enjoyed the ending. Mecha is not a character I really liked, but I could understand her anger, her fear, her helplessness and how this dark part of her grows when she finds that magic gives her power. The novel is not overly innovative, but nice and entertaining. 4 Stars

It is Mexico City, 1988. Meche, short for Mercedes, loves music, a passion inherited from her father. This is the time long before iTunes, Spotify, or MP3 players. It is all about the vinyl, and her beloved portable record player. Meche is an awkward fifteen year old teenager, unpopular with few friends, and her parents' marriage is falling apart. She throws herself into music as an escape, and discovers magic. Her friends Sebastian and Daniela help her discover the extent of her powers. But then it all goes terribly wrong, and friendships shatter. Meche flees town, never to return, she thinks. However, nearly two decades later, her estranged fathers funeral drags her back, and she has to face up to what happened all those years ago.

This story is told through multiple storyline approach. The primary is set in the 80’s when Meche and her friends are coming of age, trying to find themselves and where they fit in the world, and how to cope with all the changes that life brings. The other is then twenty years later, with Meche’s return, and trying to cope with the anger she still feels. I was a bit conflicted reading this one. While on one hand I enjoyed the coming of age, mixed with the discovery of magic and how its power was found, I found the intense anger still felt by Meche twenty years later a bit confusing. She was a successful woman, with an excellent job, living a great life, yet still held onto resentment that one would imagine would have faded somewhat over the years.

As a story about love and hate - and how sometimes it can be hard to separate one from the other, it was written well. The characters are well developed. Some become a tad annoying - Sebastian I am looking at you!! But the emotions felt, the growth, the life portrayed was all done very well. I always enjoy reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work, and while this was perhaps not my favourite to date it still did bring Mexico to life, along with three teenagers just trying to belong.

*I received this copy from NetGalley for review, but all opinions are my own.

This novel is not a typical pick for me as there are some fantasy aspects, however, it had a well written main character who I found so relatable, drawing me in. I had tremendous empathy with the struggle she had to keep positive relationships with her family and friends while coming of age. I originally selected this book because of it’s integration of music and mention of mixtapes as that was so integral to me growing up.

Thank you for this book in exchange for my honest review. I love Sylvia Marino Garcia‘s writing style and this book was incredibly engaging. In Signal to Noise, Sylvia does a terrific job of pulling her readers into the story as if they are another character. The cultural aspects of this book are enthralling as well.

I enjoyed the book thank you NetGalley for the chance to review for my honest opinion
I would recommend this to my book club

Very different from the other books I have read by this author. I got a very '90s, The Craft vibe although it was set in 1988 and it seems like there will be a "happy" ending. The relationship between the main characters did feel similar to Mexican Gothic.