Synopsis:
Sadie and Max fell in love while training to be classical pianists in music school, and they’ve been chasing their dreams together ever since. Now they’ve gotten engaged and are on the verge of a bright future—until an unexpected twist throws them out of harmony. When they’re both finalists in the prestigious Van Cage piano competition, they go from being each other’s biggest fans to fierce rivals. The winner will be launched into a meteoric career as a concert pianist, but only one can take first place. Now Max and Sadie face the ultimate test. What will come first—love or their dreams?
Review:
The way Love or Music begins is actually quite confusing. Firstly you are battered by classical piano (this could just be because of my high listening speed) and then the book is in full swing. It seems like you’ve jumped into the middle of the book as there aren’t any character introductions.
The music parts don’t work very well with a higher listening speed. Everything is distorted and very jarring. You may think this is a problem I’ve created for myself but I can’t listen at a lower speed, I lose focus and get distracted very easily. It doesn’t completely take away from the listening experience but as I said before it is quite jarring.
Please, please, please can narrators/audiobook creators stop adding kissing sounds. They sound horrible and I genuinely haven’t met a single person who likes these sort of ‘ambient’ sounds.
This is very clearly a toxic relationship. I get that they are competing with each other but if you were really in love I don’t think you would act this way?
Going as far to interrupt Sadie’s piano lesson is too much, basically sabotage. Even if it was unintentional. What is going on in this relationship? They are acting like children.
As the story progresses you would expect me to like the characters more and root for their relationship. Well guess what? This does not happen, if anything I disliked them more with each second that passed. Max and Sadie were not likeable characters and they had little to no chemistry. If anything their piano teachers had more chemistry and they only shared about two minutes of dialogue.
With each Audible Original I read I am slowly losing faith that I will find another great one. The very first one I listened to was Call Me Maybe by Cara Bastone. This book had charming characters and an interesting storm, unfortunately that just was not the case here.
For Love or Music wasn’t the worst book in the world but it isn’t one I would recommend. With little substance and unlikable characters I cannot rate this book more than 1.5 stars.
Check out Young Creative Press on all socials
You can also check out my StoryGraph here
Like this post? Why not read this one too: Book Haul: September 2022
[…] Like this post? Why not read this one too: Audiobook Review: For Love or Music by Julie Lipson […]