Oh man. You guys have no idea how disappointed I am that Strange Sweet Song was such a letdown for me. I featured this as a Waiting on Wednesday pick back when we were still doing them, and that was a while ago. I hate that I didn't really like it, but there were just so many missed opportunities. I think I'll just list them off and then go into further detail after that is done.
1. The protagonist is HORRID, from the beginning to the end.
2. The narrative is stilted, disjointed, and in some places VERY hard to follow.
(Though some of this may be due to poor formatting. I am not sure.)
3. This is almost purely a romance. I would have liked the music element to be stronger. I would have liked there to be more of a focus on the paranormal. It doesn't help that the characters are cardboard and I couldn't care less about any of them.
Okay, so let's start with #1. The protagonist. Her name is Sing, you guys. I should have known based on the naming of the main character that this book was not going to be a good one. I thought I could get past it, but her stupid name yanked me out of the narrative on multiple occasions.
She's also a HUGE jerk. The author tries to redeem her in the end, but I just spent 300 pages hating this girl and wanting to strangle her. I am not going to be that forgiving. She is a snob. She is stuck on herself and arrogant. She is mean to everyone around her for no good reason. I brought some quotes with me today to show you what I mean.
Here is the setup. Sing is in a classroom learning about birdsongs. (I wish I was kidding.) The teacher is asking where baby birds learn how to sing.
"Listen to their parents?" Goatee says.
"Exactly! Most songbirds learn their songs from their parents, the way you and I learn language--and, for many of us here, music."
Was that a glance in Sing's direction? It better not have been.
So she has a complete lack of respect for her teachers. CHECK.
"Sing, aren't you taking that? I thought I saw you head over to Durand after drama."
Sing shrugs. Was that a dig, because she's not taking The Artist's Life? At least she doesn't have to take functional piano!
She's also nasty to her friends. Demeaning and condescending too. Lovely.
Ryan laughs, reaches across the table to pat her hand--thank goodness she --had her hand resting there!--and says, "It's not bad, really. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. You could just say, 'My cheeseburger was really good,' or something. He won't pick you early, since you're new, so just watch everyone else and decide."
And there is inspired writing like that. First of all, she is so incredibly happy this douchey guy (and I mean douchey) just touched her with his hand. OMG let me piss myself with excitement. Secondly, that writing is awful. We are just getting started.
Oh, this one is good. About the same douchey guy too.
Remain calm, Sing thinks. A gorgeous rehearsal pianist has his arm around you and is protecting you from the weather with his own umbrella. Don't screw this up!
Isn't her inner voice just charming? I would prefer Anastasia Steele, to be honest. And it's obvious that it's his OWN umbrella. You didn't need to include that word. One too many pronouns there since you already said HIS!! I can't with this writing and this nauseating grossmance.
If he were in Hud with the other students, he probably would have walked her all the way to her room. It doesn't matter that Lori might have seen them. He definitely wasn't trying to hide their new relationship from Lori. Definitely.
Sweetie. Honey, no. You are not seriously that desperate, pathetic, and naive all rolled into one. Ugh.
I have other examples of just how bad the writing is, but I will spare you the agony. There are also lots of passages early on that showcase just how awful Sing is. I am not kidding you, she is probably one of the nastiest protagonists I have read in years. She hates and judges all the girls around her, including her friends. She disrespects all her elders. The girl is just miserable. She pines over guys that were not worth pining over and obsesses about them until I wanted to vomit. She even takes a very important role from another girl to get herself ahead. And her main reason for doing this is because the girl is her rival. For singing and douchey guy, who's named Ryan. But Sing doesn't even like Ryan that much so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I could go on forever, but this book to me, is not worth your time. I finished it because it was so hilariously bad that I couldn't NOT finish. Plus, you know, the book had an interesting concept. I wanted to see how it ended up being executed. Not well, I might add. I don't even want to go into details about that because the rest is just so horrifying that it's not worth pushing yourself through to a payoff that is not even close to worth it.
Remember way back when when I reviewed
Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black?
This is just about as bad as that. In short? I do not recommend it.
9
8
