DNF at 67%

There it is, another DNF.
It's the seocnd time I DNF'd a Silvia Moreno-Garcia book which is particularly sad after I truly enjoyed Certain Dark Things last fall.
But that's the thing with SMG, she writes a lot of different books within many different genres and sub-genres. It shouldn't be surprising that not all of her books work for every person.

This one, I simply didn't care about.
While at first, at least the concept and the atmosphere of Mexico City (in both timelines) seemed enticing, the protagonist annoyed me right from the start. I've seen other reviews mentioning how Meche as a teen might be forgiving for her behavior, adult Meche is fankly childish, arrogant and frustrating.
It doesn't surprise that she's lonely as adult.
It's only surprising that she doesn't stay that way.

Another issue I had was the stereotypical "popular but awful" crush instead of falling in love with a genuinely kind person, Given, exactly that can also be criticised by an author, but here it just seemed "like something a teenagers do".
I didn't like that.

Overall, I couldn't warm up to these characters and eventually stopped to care at all.
In my opinion, that's a valid reason to stop reading a book, despite the book never being outrageously bad.

3/5

I was having a hard time with this until the last 25%. I didn't like Meche as a character - very unlikeable, but she was created that way. My issue was that I didn't particularly care about her or her antics for the longest time. She's kind of devoid of any emotion except severe *angst* - the 75% point is where you finally get an outburst of emotion and it really does spark something for the story.

I would have liked to see more of the trio building a connection in the modern day timeline, it felt like they were still so distanced and I think that's where I would've wanted more of that angst that Meche holds onto. Had the full book been like that final 25%, I think I would have loved it.

Side note: this book has a great selection of music!

I've been meaning to read more of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's work ever since my first successful experience reading Mexican Gothic back in 2020. I actually have more than one title lined up and waiting on my kindle, so I'm still not sure why I haven't done so already... Getting an ARC of the republished Signal To Noise was the perfect excuse to finally read one of her backlist titles sooner than later. It's true that I don't read a lot of YA anymore, but between the Mexico City setting and the promise of magic through music I simply couldn't resist adding this title to my shelves. And it definitely turned out to be an interesting read!

One of the things I loved was the late 1980s Mexico City setting. There were so many musical references as well as references to the 1980s in general, and it really set the tone for the chapters set in the past. The Mexican food mentions added a local flavor, and there was also some focus on what life was like in Mexico City back then. Would I have liked the story to have even more Mexican influence to truly feel like I was there? Yes. But as it is, the setting was still satisfying. The story itself is seemingly split in two... We have the past that feels like a YA coming of age story laced with magic and romance as well as the usual teenager problems; the present is more of an adult contemporary featuring grief over a lost parent as well as looking back at the past and broken friendships. I wasn't sure if the two were balanced all that well; I much preferred the storyline in the setting in the past myself and the present storyline was rather slow.

I still love the idea behind the magic and Meche being able to do magic through music. It was interesting to see her discover what she can do and then try to improve her skills... I do wish there would have been more focus on the magic though, because as it is it almost felt like an afterthought in points. Meche herself was also extremely unlikeable, and she lacked dept and development for me. It seems like she hasn't exactly evolved or learned from the past? The rest of the characters felt a bit cliche and underdeveloped as well, and the high school drama mainly seemed like something you would find in most typical YA stories focusing on that.

As a whole, there were things that worked for me including the setting, magic and writing style. Other elements didn't work as well for me personally, but I do still think Signal To Noise was a solid read in general.

Signal to Noise is Silvia Moreno Garcia's debut novel. It was originally published back in 2015. It is being re-printed this year in September.

Like all other SMG's books, Signal to Noise is set in Mexico. This time we follow Meche , first in 1988 as a teenage girl who doesn't fit in but has a deep love for music and later in 2009.

We have witchcraft, music, teenage anst and beautiful writing. What more can you ask for??
One of my favorite things about the book was curating a playlist with all the songs mentioned in the book. I am set for my next roadtrip.

As for the book itself I thoroughly enjoyed Meche as our MC, She is curious and strong and flawed.
As a debut novel is as strong as they come.

I am a huge Silvia Moreno-Garcia fan and I love all of her books that I've read so far, and I really enjoyed reading this one too.
There's something about her writing that just draws you in, she's fantastic at pacing a book and writing plot.

I liked the main character (to an extent), but I feel that some of the other characters were perhaps undeveloped. I would've liked the best friend to have had more of a role. I also didn't particularly enjoy the main relationship in the book, I wasn't rooting for them to be together.

Whilst I did have some issues with the characters, I devoured the book and couldn't put it down! I think it's definitely still worth a read, and I also highly recommend Mexican Gothic and (my personal favourite) Gods of Jade and Shadow by the same author.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4

This was my first book by Silvia Moreno-Garcia although I have been meaning to read her work for ages! Anyway I really enjoyed this and will definitely be getting more of her work. I loved how well this captured the conflicted feelings of teenage life, and especially that kind of anger and rage that can explode in unhealthy ways.

The pacing of the book was very good too, with the dual timelines building up tension and the reveals of what happened in the past unravelling steadily.

A very enjoyable and well-written novel

*I received a free ARC from NetGalley and the publisher*

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is magic and the rerelease of her debut, Signal to Noise, is no exception. It reminds me of We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry, a bit of The Craft, and other high school discovery of magic stories. This is a coming-of-age book of friendship, growth, music, magic, and love. Would highly recommend to all types of readers.

This was classic late night impulse request, that I then realized was not at all my thing.

The premise and initial character development seem fantastic, but not at all something I’m interested in reading, so DNFed at 10% of the way through the book.

A reissue of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s first book, an unusual variation on a coming-of-age story that probes into friendship, grief and the fracturing of family. It alternates between timelines, opening in 2009 when Meche (Mercedes) returns to Mexico City for the first time in 18 years, here for her estranged father’s funeral. Returning stirs memories of the final months of 1988 and early 1989, the moments that undid everything important to her, severing her closest ties. Meche was a teenage misfit, the sort that’s the staple of teen movies, struggling academically and routinely bullied at school, her only friends are also outsiders, bookish, pseudo-punk Sebastián and good-natured Daniela whose chronic illness marks her out as ‘different’. The three are inseparable but they long to be part of the popular circle that dominates their school. Then a chance event unlocks Meche’s latent magical abilities, inextricably tied to the music she loves, and suddenly it seems that the three might have a chance to gain the power they desperately desire.

I’ve been wanting to try something by Moreno-Garcia for a while now but I’m not sure this was the best place to start. Like many debut novels it’s quite an uneven piece, with some strands that felt awkwardly spliced together – particularly the sections told from the perspective of Meche’s flailing dad who’s never fulfilled his early promise. But there were a number of promising, compensating aspects: the detail of everyday life in Mexico City in the 1980s; the intimate portrayal of friendship, betrayal and loss. And the story overall could be fairly compelling and entertaining. I also enjoyed the references to film, books and particularly the music of the era which run through the story – there are numerous, online playlists available inspired by Moreno-Garcia’s book that are worth exploring. So not destined to be a favourite but decent enough to make me want to explore Moreno-Garcia’s later work.

This is a debut novel but then it's Sylvia Moreno Garcia so it's still one of the best novels I've read.

The book is missing the dark gothic atmosphere seen in her later works like Mexican Gothic and The Daughter Of Dr Moraou and even though it has YA elements a genre I normally don't read.

It has one of the most interesting magic systems I've read. Where spells can be cast depending on what songs you play. But not every record from the 80's has magic only the best songs do.

Any fan of her later works will love reading this book as well.

"Signal to Noise" is one of my current fav author's, Siliva Moreno-Garcia, debut novel. This review is for a new edition that is set to drop later this month. While this wasn't my favorite Moreno-Garcia novel, I still enjoyed it overall and can now better appreciate the author's progression (here I noted the seeds of the magic realism and fantasy that she has in her novels.)

The story is told in two timelines and revolves around high schooler Meche, and her two best friends, Sebastian and Daniela in Mexico City. The trio discover magic abilities and use it to target bullies, pervs, and otherwise, better their lives. The narrative then fast forwards two decades to reunite the trio in Mexico City when Meche returns for her estranger father's funeral.

As always, I enjoyed the premise of Moreno-Garcia's writing. But I did feel like this novel was trying to be too many things, part contemporary fantasy and part family drama with the relationship between Meche and her father. Because of that, the book felt underdeveloped or thinly developed as a whole. I don't feel like the novel did itself justice, when it should have picked a theme and fully leaned into that, which is how I feel Moreno-Garcia's later novels do more successfully.

But, overall I enjoyed the scenes in which the high schoolers get to explore their magical abilities as well as the cute romance that develops between Meche and Sebastian. A solid 3 stars on my end!

Thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I find it hard to put into words how I feel about this book, or how to rate it, but for the most part it was interesting and I enjoyed the premise and the characters, as well as the multiple pov's and the dual timeline narrative.

Meche is an interesting main character, one I can see did not translate well to many other reviewers. Personally, I loved her in all her selfish, contrarian glory. Angry girls are oft told they're hysterical, patronised and invalidated, but teenage girls tend to get a rubbish run of the peak puberty years and I loved watching her descend into her magic and give into her anger.

I also really enjoyed the exploration of her relationship with her father in the 2009 timeline as she navigated her complicated feelings towards him in the aftermath of his death, after 20 years of estrangement.

Sebastian was the roughest part of the book for me, I personally didn't like his and Meche's dynamic romantically, and towards the end of the 1989 timeline I lost patience for their games of deliberately hurting each other in cycles of teenage jealousy.

Overall, I did enjoy the book a lot, and would recommend it for anyone who wants a low magic setting, explorations of grief and tough love. I very much liked the author's style and lot of her other books sound amazing, so I'll definitely be picking them up in future.

In 1988, Mexico City, Meche and her friends find magic. The three of them use this magic to help themselves and their families. However, something changes. Betrayal or a misunderstanding?
Flash forward to 2009, Meche returns to Mexico City for her father’s funeral. She’s having a hard time dealing with her family when she runs into an old friend. A friend who used to cast magic spells with her. Reliving the memories, she thought she got rid of, Meche finds her old source of magic. But is there any magic left?
I went into this book blind. All I knew is that Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author. I loved Silvia’s others books, but this one just fell flat for me. It wasn’t bad, it just isn’t the book for me. It couldn’t hold my attention and I didn’t really care enough about the characters to try to pay attention.
However, I loved the magic system in the book. I love soft magic systems that don’t typically get explained. I thought the magic in the story was very creative and not overwhelming enough to take away from the plot, but it added to it.
I enjoyed the back and forth between 1988 and 2009. For me nostalgia was from the 2009 sections of the book. Meche using her IPod was a flash from the past. For others the nostalgia might be the record collection Meche has is 1988.
Overall, it wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't a book for me. But I was still able to enjoy aspects of it!

i couldn't read the whole thing because the format didn't work on my device. it kept moving forwards when i simply wanted to highlight something, and i could only get through the first twenty pages before giving up. a formatting disadvantage that is to be considered towards its final publication (i cannot speak for the content as i hardly had time to figure out what was going on. silvia moreno-garcia's writing was as good as always, though, which made it all the more frustrating).

2 stars

I really truly wanted to like this book but our main character, Meche is so unlikable and does some things that are very reprehensible without remorse or empathy that I just couldn't enjoy this, even with me liking the atmosphere and the music "Easter eggs".
I was expecting a character that would grow up with time but we only got a childish MC that never learned from her mistakes and had zero regrets about it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Signal to Noise is a beautiful novel weaving love, music and literal sorcery. That third one threw me for a loop, and I absolutely adored it. I was immediately drawn into the atmosphere of where the story took place and felt like I knew each of the main characters intimately. Highly recommend.

I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia's ideas and in this one the ideas of music and magic were great. As always she was amazing at setting the atmosphere. While the teen characters weren't necessarily likable, they were realistic. This one is a reprint of her novel previously published in 2009 and it felt like you can tell that her writing style has evolved over the years.
Thank you Rebellion and NetGalley for this ARC.

This is a re-release and after reading _Velvet Was the Night_ I wanted to pick up this earlier book. The characters are very well drawn and it feels like I know what Mexico City in the 80s and now was like just from reading it, plus there's a lot of cool music references and good family and friend drama, and throw in a little bit of modern day magic.

2.5 stars. Signal To Noise drew my attention by the author (whose work I have loved) and the premise. Magical vinyl records?! Yes please!

Unfortunately, I really struggled to get sucked into the story. It felt very promising in the first few pages. But around the 20% mark I started considering DNFing. I just didn't care. The characters weren't coming to life for me. Since the book just isn't very long, I pushed on. And honestly, once I passed the 55% mark or so, I started finding myself sympathizing more for the characters. Once Meche really starts buckling under her stress, she really shone. At one point, Sebastian compares Meche to a cat who wants to cuddle and purr when she feels like it, but can unexpectedly claw and hiss. It was a very apt comparison and her character ended up being very interesting, though not thoroughly likable, as this developed. I wish the focus had been more on the adult half of Meche's life because I struggled to find anything to latch onto in the teen years, even with the magic.

A lot of what I love about Moreno-Garcia's writing is the ambience of the world she creates. This book fell very flat in that area for me. Being that this is her debut novel, I like being able to see how she's grown in the last few years. I still look forward to reading her newer books.

I was super excited to read this because Moreno-Garcia's MEXICAN GOTHIC as well as GODS OF JADE AND SHADOW, but it's clear that this is an earlier work. I liked the Mexican setting but the magic elements were confusing and insufficient. RTC.