Of the ten most well-known novels SMG has published (I’m not as familiar with her anthology work), I have read seven, including just now “Signal to Noise.” I think her writing is beautiful, her characters passionate, and her attention to detail makes every story interesting. And I wholeheartedly enjoyed “Signal to Noise.” I’m a sucker for soundtracks like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Baby Driver,” where it’s an eclectic collection of 70’s and 80’s music, and this book felt like that kind of soundtrack in written form. Plus magic because why ever not? Teenage angst aside, I liked the main characters and was invested in the story from start to finish.

Great coming to age noval. You connect with the characters right away. Made me remember why I disliked kids in middle school. Definitely recommend.

Wow! What an amazing book!!
Would love to read more from the author.
Thankyou netgalley for the Arc!

I really ended up caring about the characters in this ( Meche, Sebastian and even Daniela). They are sort of a bunch of outcasts in 80s Mexico, and discover magic linked with music. It would fall under SFF but really also is an emotional story about friendship and family , and wanting to fit in.There is also their perspective 20 years later interspersed. I found this very immersive and also gave me a feeling of nostalgia, and enjoyed this more than I expected to. Thanks to Netgalley and Rebellion for the arc.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an copy of this republished book in exchange for my honest review. I love SMG’s mind, and this debut is no exception. A retro magic filled tale that kept me hook from the first line.

Signal to Noise is the debut novel of Silvia Moreno- Garcia, which is being rereleased in September 2022. This is a coming-of-age story filled with music, popular culture references, and magical realism.

It is the story of Meche (aka Mercedes), an awkward, unpopular teenage girl in Mexico in the late 1980s. Meche, along with her equally unpopular friends, discover magic and the ability to cast spells using vinyl records.

There are dual timelines. The first is set in the late 1980’s, and the second is twenty years later. The two timelines are beautifully interwoven. The 80’s timeline is filled with the discoveries of Meche and her friends while they transverse adolescence, love, heartbreak, magic, and growing up. The later timeline reveals what happened in the 80’s that forever changed their relationships and lives and if they can move forward.


Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ebook copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Okay, I want to start this off by mentioning that this ARC didn't have any indication on when a chapter started or ended, and that made reading this kind of annoying. Obviously I assume this book DOES have chapters and isn't one long body of text with a thousand paragraphs, so I'm not holding that against the author or publisher.
Alright, on to the review.
The cover of this book is stunning, and the premise really made me want to read this. I'm a huge music lover so I absolutely loved the music is magic element of this. I also really loved the setting; Mexico in 1989 was really cool to experience.
Meche is such a strong character, even with her flaws. I found myself relating to her at times and finding her generally interesting. Again, the magic element was a really unique and cool touch.
I love alternating timelines and piecing together what happened over time, but I found it kind of odd that we didn't get many details of what happens in the 20 years in between the timelines.
Also, I just really didn't like Sebastian. Meche was so developed and strong as a character and Sebastian just...wasn't. I also thought it was odd that Meche seems over the main conflict that separated her and Sebastian before we even find out what it was.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I still recommend to any music lovers that want a unique coming of age romance.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Witchy and Wonderful

First of a huge thank you to the author Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Reprint Publishing for providing an e-ARC via NetGalley.

“Mexico City, 1988. Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said "I love you" with a mixtape. Meche, awkward and fifteen, discovers how to cast spells using music, and with her friends Sebastian and Daniela will piece together their broken families, and even find love...

Two decades after abandoning the metropolis, Meche returns for her estranged father's funeral, reviving memories from her childhood she thought she buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? Is there any magic left?” - Reprint Publishing.

There are books that come into your life at just the right time. Books that describe events that are happening in your own life. For me, Signal to Noise was one of those books. Much like the main character Meche, I too am in the process of cleaning out the home of my father who passed and whom I was estranged from. So instantly I understood the headspace our main character was in during the 2009 portions of the book. Meche having to confront not just her relationship or lack there of with her father but how that affected her childhood and past mistakes and relationships rang absolutely true to me.
The portions of the book taking place in the 80s were my favorite part. There we get to see Meche and her friends as teenagers who are tired of being at the bottom of the high school pecking order and looking for anyway to change that, even if that something is witchcraft. I loved how the magic system was based around music. If I had any wish it would be that even more time with the magic system and how it all worked. Due to the focus being more on the teen’s relationships and how they start to change, we are often left with minimal explanations of how the music and magic are actually tied together. This is definitely unfortunate as it seems like a fascinating concept for a magic system.

If you love contemporary fiction mixed with a glimpse at the 1980s and some magic sprinkled on top, this is definitely a book to add to your TBR.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I was initially captured by the cover art and then intrigued by the line "for fans of Stranger Things." That's me. I'm a fan of Stranger Things. So I hurriedly applied for the ARC and was delighted to receive it just a few days later!

Set in dual timelines, one in 1980s Mexico City, so this is where the Stranger Things reference is. Mainly the 80s music. The book contains an epic playlist of music across every chapter. I enjoyed the magic system. I wish Meche were nicer, she comes off as bratty at times. I really enjoyed reading from a different voice. Siliva Moreno-Garcia is Canadian-Mexican, which is a new-to-me voice. I liked learning a little about the Mexican culture as well.

Bottom line, if you like light magic, the 80s and music, give this book a try! Especially if you love music. That for me is what truly made it stand out. Honestly, I hope this becomes a movie or tv series, I'd binge it in a heartbeat.

(3.5 stars) <i>Signal to Noise</i> is a re-release. It's hard to know how to classify this book--it hovers between young adult and adult, and I think that might be why the book feels a bit disjointed at times. It can be a little hard to reconcile how young the chapters that take place in the past feel compared to the adult themes in the contemporary storyline. I wish that Mercedes was a little bit more fleshed out. She seems so angry both as an adult and teenager and we never get to fully explore why. Overall, I liked the book even when the plot lags a bit at times. It reminds me quite a bit of Charles de Lint's novels because of the urban fantasy elements and punk music references.


Thanks, NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing an arc - all thoughts and opinions are my own.



If Silvia has one fan- I am that fan.
That is all.
Her first published book is definitely not as dark vibes as her newer ones, but it’s neat to see where someone has come from.

I saw the title and summary of this book and was fascinated. The idea that magic and music were so closely entwined, added to the fact that the bulk of the novel is based in the 1980s, an era I identify with and remember well, really appealed.

Meche, Mercedes, is a 15-year-old girl living in Mexico City, she is somewhat isolated with a small close-knit group of friends and her family life is less than ideal, with parents who don’t love each other. So, the discovery of magic in the music she listens to and loves is perfect.

However, with great power comes great responsibility, as the saying goes.

This book has a bit of The Craft about it, with Meche in the role of the misguided and power-hungry Nancy Downs. When things stop going the way she is sure they need to, her friendships begin to fail, and she turns to the magic becoming destructive, angry and dangerous.

This book swiftly moves between the present day (in this instance 2009) and the past (1988), when Meche returns to Mexico after years away, to bury her father, who abandoned her and her mother in 1989. As much as I loved the past and present storylines, I found that they didn’t meld as well as I would have expected them to. There is something about the way that the two timelines worked together that made the present-day storyline feel unnecessary.

I think that had the book started with the present and then gone back to the past and stayed there until it naturally moved through the timeline it would have flowed better.

That having been said, 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.

Thank you to Netgalley and Rebellion for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Signal to Noise is a semi-dark magical realism story about music and friendship. Meche is a deeply uncool teen in 1980s Mexico City, but she loves vinyl and hanging out with her equally outcast friends. When the trio discovers they can do magic with music, things start to take a dark turn. In alternating chapters, we meet Meche as a grown woman, a successful software developer who lives in Norway. She's returned to Mexico City to deal with her father's affairs, and her past confronts her.

Like all of Moreno-Garcia's work, this is mesmerizing, magical, and as far as you can get from generic sci-fi/fantasy. I had more trouble with Signal to Noise because, in many ways, Meche is far less sympathetic than most of Moreno-Garcia's protagonists (who themselves are certainly not perfect). But that complexity gives the story its meat, and it made me reflect what I might have done with magical powers as a 15-year old.

Rereading the book several years later, I focused more on the disintegrating relationship between Meche and her father and the weighty, onerous task of going through her father's apartment. There's a parallel drawn between Meche's father, an abject failure by most accounts, and Meche herself. They are very different— Vincente dies alone and nearly penniless while Meche is an apparent success in her overseas software career— and yet so similar. Both are captivated by music and surround themselves with it to the detriment of their relationships. Meche, in many ways, is not just going through her father's old possessions— she's going through the motions that a distant relative or former friend would do with her own apartment.

I'll read anything Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes, and enjoyed this story of music and magic, That said, Signal to Noise is less honed and gripping than her newer works, probably because this is a re-release.

I went in with a lot of hope that this book would be unputdownable and I wasn’t disappointed! It was slow at first but it picked up and was awesome

A new version of an older book of Moreno-Garcia focuses on magic in a city. Teens discover how to cast spells and one must deal with her memories when she returns years later for her father’s funeral.

I didn’t feel the same magic I’ve felt in other of the author’s books before. It didn’t draw me in quickly like others, especially Mexican Gothic, did.

Rating: 2.5/5 (rounded to 2)

Thanks to NetGalley for sending me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Angsty 15-year-old Meche discovers that there is magic in music. Together with her friends, Daniela and Sebastian, they use it to cast spells to maybe change their social outcast status. However, nothing good can happen when an angry teenager wields that much power...

If this sounds like The Craft, it's because it is. But with some very nice songs sprinkled in between (my compliments to the chef). I was not fully convinced by the magic in this book and, overall, it made me quite sad. The main characters are faced with bullying, illness, difficult family lives, unrequited love, poverty, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and alcohol addiction. And when they discover magic, they naturally take shelter in that.
I liked that the book was written from the perspectives of multiple characters, but I did find all of them rather depressing. Perhaps it was my fault for seeing terms like "magic" and "music spells" and assuming this will be more upbeat and exciting. I think this was quite a dark and realistic take on what would happen if a bunch of teenagers suddenly discovered they had magical powers.

The book alternates between Mexico in the '80s and the present (2009), where we see what became of the teenagers, who are now in their late 30s. The 2009 storyline was in the background and did not add much for me; I could have done without it. Lastly, I found the ending to be quite abrupt and I don't think it matched the tone of the story. Apart from that, although I have not highlighted many quotes, I can't complain about the quality of the writing. I would not say this book was bad; it just wasn't for me.

Set in Mexico City in two timelines 20 years apart, Silvia Moreno-Garcia tells the story of three friends and how power and pride come between them. I loved Mexican Gothic, so I jumped at the chance to request an ARC of the author’s reissued debut novel.

Despite the magical setting and premise, the book’s characters are realistic and never fully overcome their flaws, which is something I enjoy about this author’s novels. I could see this being a good movie or limited series adaptation. The novel centers on a major falling out between friends, and I felt that part was rushed. Even 20 years later, it seemed like the other two friends were two quick to forgive (trying to avoid spoilers here but it does involve physical harm). I also wish we would have leaned more about the magic and how it works from Meche’s grandmother.

Thanks to Rebellion and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

‘Signal to Noise’ is a young adult, dual time period set in Mexico City following Meche, an outcast with tumultuous family relationships and a love for music. Her and her two best friends, Sebastian and Daniela, start to experiment with magic, and divides in their friendship begin to appear as a result…

This was a fluid read - I was able to get through it quickly and it was certainly an interesting premise, but I did feel the execution was weak. Meche as a main character is intolerable - her abuse of her powers, though interesting initially, became increasingly frustrating to read due to her refusal to accept she has ever done anything wrong. The writing of the magic wasn’t super strong or anything particularly unique - and the rest sort of felt like your standard YA high school novel.

Thanks to netgalley for the arc

I really expected to like this book more than I did. I think this author is a mixed bag for me. I've read some of her stories and loved them, I've read some of her stories and did not like them at all.

This one fell flat for me. The characters are flat, the setting is flat, the plot is flat. It just felt very underwhelming and as a whole underdeveloped. For example, I felt like the only way the portions that are set in the past were reflected to us was through a multitude of references to bands, and not much else.

I didn't find much that felt relatable with the characters.

The plot is slow and I never quite got the point of the story. There wasn't a sense of urgency, nor a connection to the characters' desires or motivations.

It has the elements for teenage angst and coming of age with a sprinkle of magical realism. And it is set against two different time periods, where we could potentially see how the events unfold and how the characters have changed over the years. Except, I just didn't really see any of that.

I didn't experience the depth that I felt this story had the potential for.

There are no truly defining activators in the plot, nothing that is driving or pulling us along.

I didn't feel it, didn't connect to it. I wasn't moved.

I don't have much to say about this one other than it being a bland experience for me. My memory of it is as unremarkable as how I felt while reading it. Maybe that's harsh, maybe I'll be the minority with these feelings, maybe it's just that this isn't the book for me. Either way, I unfortunately can't say I'd recommend it.