Name: Mey's review of Heartbreak Symphony by Laekan Zea Kemp
Item: Heartbreak Symphony
Rating: 4.5
Author: Mey

Laekan Zea Kemp

Set in the Monte Vista neighborhood of San Antonio and told in alternating voices, teenaged musicians Aarón and Mia grow close as they share and struggle to overcome the emotional pain of their troubled home lives.

Heartbreak Symphony

 the universe open wide and it sings to me the truth. That my flesh and bone are powerful instruments and my mind... my mind, in all its disarray, is the conductor.

I am a whole universe. Expanding instead of shrinking. Wishing on stars instead of waiting for them to fall.

Falling, for the first time, without worrying where I'll land if it'll hurt.

I know it will sometimes, but there will also be this. Me and Mia curled around each other. Me and my music in the middle of the night. Me and my dreams slowly coming true.

And I realize that falling in love is like writing the perfect song. Like the world is suddenly a symphony, the chaos of life transforming into chord structures, into a melody that only the two of us can hear.

Love is the soundtrack, the heart-punping rhythm inhabiting my whole body. Making my heart swell so big that I can't imagine it ever being broken.

. These fragile things are what make life worth living, but they're also what makes it so dangerous. Because nothing is safe. But maybe the fact that life is fleeting should make us love it even more.

Knowing that this is the only truth that matters. 

This is the curse. This is the gift. That everything changes. 

We pray for all the birds that have left the nest. All the diamonds that have been dulled. All the souls that have been trampled on and ripped from their husks.

He didn't know how to carry them both. How to exist in a world where both things are true. 

Two notes in the same song, each taking the lead in different moments of our lives; other times tangling themselves up into chaos. White noise that makes us forget that life was ever a song to begin with.

I wonder what the difference is between DNA and destiny. They're both signatures, road maps, a way of marking where you've been and where you're going. But are they both things you're not allowed to choose?

"A speaker for your soul. The soul goes in through the mouthpiece and comes out the other end as sound."

... the most beautiful things die twice. A star imploded but it isn't gone. When the light finally disappears, that's when a thing really dies.

So the key to cheating death, the key to living forever, is to make enough light that 

Passions should come with a blaring red warning.

Because what he didn't say is that before the dreams can carry me, I have to be able to carry them first. And they're 

... that's what happens when you're a great storyteller. Once the story has a life of its own, there's no making you disappear.

And the hardest part is that Doubt does not lie. It just doesn't tell the whole truth.

Because my songs are not a symphony and nothing I've made will catch the world on fire.

I didn't tell her that our hearts now carried the same scar.

If you're a burnt-out musician clap your hands 👏👏

Making music is like summoning a ghost. Play the right melody, strike the right chords, and people remember the past with their whole bodies. What it felt like to fall in love for the first time. What it felt like to have that heart you never knew could be so big, broken.

The right song sinks its teeth in us and makes us feel in places we thought were numb. The right song hangs us high above the clouds and makes us dream.

Mel 

Received an e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

This was an extremely beautiful, coming of age, love story about grief and identity in modern times. I loved seeing Mia and Aaron’s story unfold and how the author tied in topical current events and the issues specific to the Latinx experience in America. Fans of Elizabeth Acevedo will fall in love with Heartbreak Symphony. I also adored the role music plays in bringing the two characters together and helping them heal and grow individually. I can’t wait for everyone to read this.

This book. This book hit all the spots that I, as a musician with mental health issues like our protagonists, felt deep in me.

It is beautiful in the way it portrays the agony of loss, and also in the way it reminds us of the hope and love we can find in the most despairing of situations. This book is going into my special figurative box of this specific genre along with We Can be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley and As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh (both of which are 5-star reads).

This book. This book hit all the spots that I, as a musician with mental health issues like our protagonists, felt deep in me.

It is beautiful in the way it portrays the agony of loss, and also in the way it reminds us of the hope and love we can find in the most despairing of situations. This book is going into my special figurative box of this specific genre along with We Can be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley and As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh (both of which are 5-star reads).

Avery Baumel

this was really good!! not amazing though, but still i loved it. i love a lot of books oh well

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Heartbreak Symphony by Laekan Zea Kemp

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Mey &Heartbreak Symphony by Laekan Zea Kemp

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Heartbreak Symphony by Laekan Zea Kemp