DNF at 149 pages.

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Going into IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS by Anna Meriano, all I knew was that this was a YA book about a girl who accidentally gets half her bandmates kicked off the team and has to work to make things right. I have read Meriano’s entire LOVE SUGAR MAGIC middle-grade series and absolutely loved it, so my expectations were high!! I want to say this, there is nothing inherently wrong with this book. It maybe is a little slow and info-dumpy at the start, but I was really enjoying my time after the 50-page mark. I was interested in seeing where the story was going and would have kept reading if not for finding out this is a sequel.
A sequel to a book titled THIS IS HOW WE FLY which was released in 2020 and is a story about our main character’s sibling who joins a quidditch team. The entire premise of THIS IS HOW WE FLY is about Harry Potter, JKR, and being friends with Harry Potter fans. I looked through the reviews of that book and found LOADS of people happily talking about how this was an “acceptable way” for them to “enjoy Harry Potter without getting attacked.” I have seen Anna Meriano do a lot of good for the trans community, so seeing her market an entire book about transphobia ON transphobia, was disheartening, to say the least. Other Latine trans people have made reviews talking about how no matter how good THIS IS HOW WE FLY is, you should not be supporting it. I agree. I do not care that the line “JKR IS A TERF” is in the book, it still does not excuse you from profiting off of the harm she has caused TONS of marginalized communities.
With that said, I was not aware IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS was a follow-up to a book all about a transphobic, antisemitic, racist, bigoted series. If I had known that, I would have never asked for a copy of this book, to begin with. This is a real shame because Anna Meriano is a talented author of our time. I typically adore her works and was so excited to see where Yasmin was taken in IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS.

Well... this one was a cute and a great coming-of-age story, but I really struggled to get into it. I'm not sure if it's my lack of band experience or what, but I still enjoyed it at the end of the day. Kudos to this book for being willing to mention and discuss so many difficult topics.

4.25 Stars

Thank you to Penguin Teen for a finished copy of this book!

Yasmin has goals to not just rock marching band, but also to beat out her best friend as first chair flute for her sophomore year. But when she reports something at a party and ends up getting almost the entire low brass section kicked out of band, "Hurricane Yasmin" is determined to do whatever it takes to fix her mistakes, even if that means learning the tuba.

This was so cute! It had a bit of a slow start and I was kind of annoyed with Yasmin for a while because she is SUCH a people-pleaser. I was so frustrated with the fact that it seemed absolutely no one understood why she reported what happened at the party and even Yasmin kept saying it was a mistake. Luckily, this changed later in the book when she realized she did the right thing! Thank god.

Yasmin has a lot of character development throughout this book. My favorite parts were her quasi-found-family dynamics with Bloom and the rest of the brand new low brass section. I loved them supporting her and having her back without question later in the book. It definitely made me tear up a time or two!

There was a short but well done discussion on asexuality and a tiny bit on Bloom's gray-romanticism. I really loved this part but wished it had been developed more later in the book!

Overall I really enjoyed this queer band story!

Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, and Bullying
Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, and Sexual harassment

Overall, I liked the idea of the marching band and trying to make a ragtag team of freshman brass, but the effort to do that was far too much. It felt like an episode of euphoria mixed with Mean girls, the cyber bullying and toxicity was too much, I loved the conversation of aro/ace rep and yasmin was an overall chaotic neutral character. Also, unnecessary clarinet slander.

I thought this was a pretty cute read. I used to play the flute so i found it relatable, although i was never interested in marching band. I enjoyed the various lgbt rep. However, the Quidditch references should be taken out…it’s 2022, we’ve moved past the need for harry potter references, given the transphobic reviews of the creator

this was a solid coming of age novel! this would definitely resonate more with people more invested in band and ex band members. despite the sometimes slow pace, i did end up mostly enjoying this. there were many discussions that took place on religion, seuxality, and more, which I enjoyed greatly.

As a Latina with expectations (both familial and self-imposed), Yasmín's story to self acceptance and boundary learning is something I definitely relate to. It was also great to see so much representation in a book, however, it overall fell a bit flat for me. We see her try to salvage a toxic friendship and try new friendships, but at the end of the day, there is not enough growth or resolution to warrant this higher than 3 stars from me. It's an okay book, not a great one.

Thank you to Penguin and Netgalley for this e-arc! I thought this was a cute book, I haven’t read Anna Meriano’s first book but I heard Yasmin is the MC’s younger sister from This is How We Fly! Yasmin is a character with great rep that I feel like readers can relate to and is so important for younger readers to see. The romance is cute, the rep is amazing and the vibes are on point!

What happens at band camp …
In her dedication, Meriano mentions that It Sounds Like This is a “pandemic book.” The social effects of the pandemic on teens are paralleled here, even if the reason the kids were kept out of school was not a pandemic, but a hurricane. That was a smart choice. Speaking of hurricanes …

Oh, Yasmín. Anna Meriano’s It Sounds Like This does not let her off the hook. Yasmín truly is a hurricane, a force to be reckoned with, and I loved watching her grow into herself. Meriano unapologetically throws you into Yasmín’s world, without explanation of her family dynamics. I could see readers who don’t come from cultures where filial piety is super important being frustrated with Yasmín (and her choices, especially with regard to her cyberbully).

Make new friends but keep the old …
I cannot adequately express the joy I felt realizing that all of Yasmín’s new band section mates/friends were boys. Don’t @ me, but there are social differences in the way that different genders interact. Though Meriano nicely evades falling into any potential pitfalls here by featuring characters who are trans/nonbinary, who have various sexualities, etc.

In any case, there is a lot of value in being friends with people who are genders other from your own. It’s nice to see it in action.

Our resident gray aro/ace, Bloom, voices something that I’ve thought for so long but had yet to see in media. He says, “There’s nothing ‘just’ about being friends … friends are the best.” (Which, like 🤌!!! ) Maybe one day more allo people will realize this.

I get it, your significant other often holds a different status in your life — but it’s not better than that of a friend. And, often, our strongest and longest enduring relationships in life are friendships. (I have friendships that are two decades longer than my longest romance, for example.) Kudos to It Sounds Like This for putting this to paper.

“Saturday morning is Bloom’s church time?”
Religion plays a big part in It Sounds Like This, at least in an undercurrent kind of way. Yasmín is Catholic but doesn’t want to be Catholic in the “traditional” way. Bloom is Jewish, but he mentions he has extended family who is more “observant,” mainly because his own family is Reform. A few things stood out to me about the way religion was treated in the book.

First, it fascinated me how little the kids knew about each other’s faiths (Yasmín refers to “synagogue” as “church”). Also, on a larger scale, I understand why we talk about people being more observant if they follow the “older” ways, but maybe we shouldn’t. Just within the context of this book, faith is important to these two characters, even if Yasmín doesn’t believe marriage is only between a man and a woman, or if Bloom drives to temple.

Food for thought …

Should you read it?
For sure! Especially if you are/were a band, theatre or choir kid. And though I’ve not lived there, just having visited, I do feel like Meriano has captured the Houston vibe. She’s certainly captured the post-pandemic vibe of being in school again. It Sounds Like This manages to be easy-breezy, yet deep; really specific, yet universal; and really fun, yet dark — all at once.

(I mean, let’s be real, though, Anna Meriano had me at Lizzo).


It Sounds Like This is out on August 2. You can pick up a copy at your local indie book store or library. 📚🎺🥁

Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this book to read and review. Honestly this book was a struggle. I loved the band background because I know band is a really special place for people. However instead of feeling special, this felt catty and juvenile. Yasmin was an insufferable main character and her friends and other side characters at the beginning of the book were not much better. This book was great on the diversity levels. There was a lot of LGBTQIA+ rep in the side characters and I liked learning a bit more about Ace rep! There also was Jewish rep in Bloom and he honestly became my favorite character. I liked where this was trying to go with the community aspect, but it really was hard to enjoy at points because of the characters. It also felt so young and I couldn't get past that too even with knowing it was a YA book.

This book brought back some fond memories of my time in the high school marching band. My experience was definitely very different from Yasmin's. I did not have all that drama, thank god! There were many similarities to how my marching band worked in high school but also a lot of things that were completely different and I was like is this how other schools' marching bands work?? I've only had my own school experience so I can't say how other schools do things. So it was interesting to see how different things worked for Yasmin.
Overall I did this book but not as much as I had hoped. There were some random things that just seemed a little off to me. I don't want to get into specifics because of spoilers, but yeah. I liked many of the characters that joined the low brass section after everything went down at the beginning. I liked the little romance that was going on in the background. One of the things I would have liked more of and which would have brought my rating up to 4 stars, was more character development for Yasmin. She could have grown so much and she did grow some but I don't think it was nearly enough.

content warning: cyberbullying, emotional abuse, toxic friendship

This book caught me by surprise! I love reading about high school students who are super passionate about things that society deems “uncool”, in this case, band kids. I knew that I was going to love the setting of this book– there’s nothing better than early morning rehearsals or dinner after a big performance– but I did think that romance drove the plot. I was a little bit disappointed at the lack of a romantic plot line because the blurb makes it sound like Gilberto Reyes was going to be a more central character, but once I came to an understanding that the book was going in a different direction I enjoyed the book! I loved seeing the low brass section come together and form an unexpected friend group, and I liked seeing Yasmin’s growth throughout the book. Anna Meriano did a really great job with the pop culture references (I too listen spend hours listening to Olivia Rodrigo when I’m feeling angsty) and it made this book super relatable to teen experiences today. I also appreciated the aro-ace and aro-romantic representation!! To be honest, I found Yasmin a little bit insufferable in the beginning but by the end, I was rooting for her to succeed and find happiness. I’d recommend this book for younger teens, or readers looking to transition from Middle Grade to Young Adult!

Thank you to Penguin Teen for the advanced copy of It Sounds Like This! This is a contemporary coming of age YA novel focusing on the drama and conflict of a group of band kids. Yasmin has her future outlined and is working hard to make sure she is the best flute player in the band even though that means competing with her life long best friend. This book does a good job outlining the hardships of high school behavior and focuses more on friendships and bonding rather than romantic relationships. When Yasmin tries to stop a bullying incident she becomes a target of gossip and is willing to do anything to fix it, including putting the flute and her dreams aside to learn a new instrument with a new team of mostly freshman boys. The bonding of this group was my favorite part of the story. Through this experience Yasmin learns more about herself. Yasmin was a complex character who makes a ton of mistakes but felt so realistic. This book shines the light on many different topics such as issues with religious faith, sexual identities and orientations, social media bullying and more. The representation was so broad and I really enjoyed it.

It Sounds Like This is the story of Yasmin, a high school sophomore who plays flute in the band. She starts off the year by accidentally geting the entire low brass section of the marching band kicked out (by showing their teacher a video of the boys bullying one of their teammates-- and drinking). As penance she agrees to switch instruments, to the sousaphone, and help form the new low brass section. I loved watching Yasmin grow throughout the story. The true friendships she forms with the other members of low brass really warmed my heart. This novel realistically describes cyber bullying and its effects. Reading this took me right back to high school, and I really enjoyed the ride.

3/5

This was such a cute coming of age!

I really liked the backdrop of using band since marching band does foster enough angst and drama in one week to last you the entire year. I thought that it gave Yasmin the chance to grow and challenged herself to grow out of what she was comfortable with.

The book does touch on quite a bit of things that a 15 year old would start struggling with: outgrowing friends, gaining new friends, getting out of your comfort zone, figuring out your sexuality, and struggling with fitting in this image that your parents built for you, versus who you find yourself becoming.

The one thing that really kept me from giving the book a 4 or even a 5, but I felt like Yasmin didn’t grow a ton in the book. She still felt the same as she did in the beginning.

I needed a sweet band geek novel so I'm glad I found this novel. It has SO much LGBTQIA+ rep, especially that of aro/ace (which makes my heart go pitter patter). I kept thinking back to my time in band (as one of those wimpy clarinets, admittedly), and wishing I'd gotten into brass instead! There's seriously so much going on here between the subplots about Catholicism and cyber bullying, but also about finding yourself. I enjoyed the dialogue on being kind rather than competitive and decentering the narrative from yourself. And ultimately? LOW BRASS IS WHERE IT'S AT!

*Thank you to Viking Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

As a former marching band nerd myself, I was very excited about this book. While I did like it, it failed to meet my expectations.

I felt it was slow to get going, and I wasn't overly impressed with the way it was written. The author's overuse of parentheses and run-on sentences was a bit distracting. Jasmin is the main character who is always striving to be the best at everything. She is very much an overachiever. Her character was not very likable, even as she goes through her growth and development throughout the story. I was happy that she finally did learn who her friends really were in the end.

There was a lot of nice representation throughout the book, with BIPOC characters, and a variety of LGTBQ+ characters.

I received this digital ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

What happens when a high-school marching band’s entire low brass section is suspended? Yasmín Treviño and several of her bandmates volunteer to be part of a replacement low brass section in an effort to save their marching band. It Sounds Like This is a wonderfully representative book for characters with diverse identities and orientations. I read a digital ARC of this book through Penguin Classroom’s “Read with Pride” invitation, fulfilled through the NetGalley platform.

i dnf-ed this cause i didn’t realize it was about a sophomore in high school and seeing that i am about to be a junior in college, i just couldn’t do it (put 5 stars cause this isn’t the book or author’s fault)

This is an excellent book about friendship, ambition, familial and religious expectations, , and the complications of being a LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse, or just plain confused teen trying to navigate adolescence. The protagonist is relatable, but so are the antagonists. It is also a relief to see a book which ends with teens NOT all pairing off and that recognizes that aro and ace teens exist and struggle to find their place in a world which often seems like Noah's ark.

As a former band geek who rode the "Bone Bus" with the low brass section, in part because as a geeky, neurodiverse girl I often fit in better with the mostly male camraderie than the mostly female woodwind section, I was also thrilled to see low brass get some love.

I am aware that this is a book that probably won't be approved for purchase for most school libraries, so I plan to add it to my music library for my students to check out as soon as it is available in print.