*I was given an ARC of The Music of Us in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Blink and Emerald Alexandrea for my copy of the book*
Synopsis:
If life came with a playlist, Lucy’s current era would be “stressed girl summer.” While her friends are out enjoying the last summer before college, Lucy has her hands full managing her mom’s quirky cat café. But with the fancy new coffee shop across the street, how will she attract enough customers to adopt the cats—or even pay the rent?
In a desperate moment, Lucy emails her ex-best friend (and first crush) Jake Moody, who’s now the resident bad boy in the massively popular boy band the Usual Suspects. Lucy hasn’t spoken to him in years—not since he kissed her and left for auditions without a backward glance. Which she’s totally not holding a grudge about, thanks for asking.
To her surprise, Jake is all in on hosting a livestream performance to raise support for the café—and salvage his image after his most recent scandal. As Jake and Lucy work together to corral his bandmates and plan the livestream, she finds her old feelings resurfacing despite her firm intentions to keep her distance. Is it possible the old Jake she knew is still hiding under his new rebellious image?
Review:
The Music of Us was an entertaining romance audiobook, but it didn’t blow me away. I love books about bands but this one wasn’t as fun as I expected. Most of the book is spent either arguing or worrying about the cafe closing so it wasn’t as lighthearted as I hoped, but I did finish it, so it wasn’t terrible.
The narration was fairly well done but at times the narrator would do the wrong accent or voice for the wrong character and it would be very confusing. I’m not sure if this issue will be fixed in the officially released audiobook, but it was just often enough for it to be confusing.
The characters would often act much older than they are so I’d get confused when they’d talk about being teenagers but then acting like they’ve lost the love of their life. Lucy and Jake are 18 years old and haven’t seen each other for a few years but they act like it’s been 10 years with no contact. I know teens have a tendency to be dramatic but this did seem a little over the top. Also, the reason for them not talking was a little ‘meh’. It’s a been there, done that, got the T-shirt type of drama – basically your typical manager taking over their client’s life drama that happens in a lot of books about musicians/celebrities.
Character-wise, I really liked The Music of Us. Each member of the band had a distinct personality, over-caffeinated Leon was my favourite. Lucy had too big of a chip on her shoulder for me to really love her, I did love her mom though. She was very no-nonsense and pushed Lucy to pursue her passions.
The cats are definitely the stars of the show though. I especially loved Rumple who would steal little items and trinkets for his bed.
The whole time they were talking about the livestream performance I was hoping Lucy would have a reason to get involved. Imagine how romantic it would have been if Lucy and Jake reconnected by singing a love song together. That’s what I thought would happen, but Lucy didn’t get a chance to showcase her musical talents at all.
As a whole, The Music of Us is a pretty good read, but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
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