Heartbreak Symphony
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Clap When You Land meets On the Come Up in this heart-gripping story about navigating first love and overcoming grief through the power of music.
Aarón Medrano has been haunted by the onstage persona of his favorite DJ ever since his mother passed away. He seems to know all of Aarón’s deepest fears, like how his brain doesn’t work the way it should and that’s why his brother and father seem to be pushing him away. He thinks his ticket out is a scholarship to the prestigious Acadia School of Music. That is, if he can avoid blowing his audition.
Mia Villanueva has a haunting of her own and it’s the only family heirloom her parents left her: doubt. It’s the reason she can’t overcome her stage fright or believe that her music is worth making. Even though her trumpet teacher tells her she has a gift, she’s not sure if she’ll ever figure out how to use it or if she’s even deserving of it in the first place.
When Aarón and Mia cross paths, Aarón sees a chance to get close to the girl he’s had a crush on for years and to finally feel connected to someone since losing his mother. Mia sees a chance to hold herself accountable by making them both face their fears, and hopefully make their dreams come true. But soon they’ll realize there’s something much scarier than getting up on stage—falling in love with a broken heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kemp (Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet) delivers a lyrical standalone about pursuing one's dreams despite impossible odds through Chicane teens Aarón and Mia, virtual strangers bound together by two things: a passion for music, and grief after having each lost a parent. Both seek entrance and a scholarship to the Acadia School of Music, but each finds auditioning insurmountable against their own trauma—six months after Mia's mother left their family, "an alcoholic chokehold... squeezed the life out of" her father; cancer, meanwhile, has recently caused the death of Aarón's mother. While Mia navigates self-doubt, and her mother's legacy of abandonment and domestic abuse, Aarón copes by hallucinating a giant talking robot, the stage persona of his favorite musician, who has long been reported missing. As their San Antonio neighborhood, Monte Vista, crumbles under ICE raids, gentrification, and police brutality, the two navigate their realities not only for the sake of themselves and their futures, but for the culture and soul of their community. An unfocused narrative that details Aarón's experiences more fully than Mia's does little to take away from the impact of seeing two teenagers and their loved ones attempt to heal from grief, and descriptions of music are sufficiently vivid to lift melodies right off the page. Ages 14–up.
