A super sweet book about high school life and the difficulty of dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster. This is such a quintessentially high school struggle that I was thrown back to my days of toil and trouble constantly. I loved the relatability factor and the very teenager-ish struggles that become life's greatest hurdles when faced alone. Such a fun book!

Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

There are two Quidditch mentions in the beginning third of this. Unfortunate.

It Sounds like This is a YA contemporary that follows Yasmín Treviño who is ready for sophomore year after her first year was mostly cancelled thanks to Hurricane Humphrey. Yasmín is hoping to learn how to march fast so she can earn first chair in her section, even though her BFF Sofia has always been flute section leader. But when Yasmín reports an anonymous Instagram account for harassing new members, the entire low brass section is kicked out.

Yasmín can't let the year be destroyed by this so she switches to tuba along with several freshman boys in order to fill out the band. Not only must she learn a new instrument, but the Instagram account seems to be out for Yasmín's blood. Along with her deteriorating relationship with Sofia, Yasmín isn't sure how to pull everything back together.

I really enjoyed this contemporary! The exploration of friendship and sexuality was so well done. I loved that friendship break ups are given the emotional weight they deserve. Sofia and Yasmín have been best friends for as long as they can remember, but as their relationship grows increasing toxic, they must decide if they should keep trying or let it go. It can be so hard to let go of a friendship, especially one that has lasted so long. I liked that this book had the message of it's okay to do that, even if it is really hard to do that.

I loved seeing Yasmín learn more about the boys who joined Low Brass. It took a while to get to know everyone but omg it was such a fun group! I really loved Bloom. He was so sweet and soft. My little cinnamon roll who must be protected at all costs. I'm so glad this section never gave up on each other!

Yasmín was a relatable and realistic character. She's a very driven young girl, but she also makes mistakes throughout the book. I loved seeing her continue to grow as a character and learn to do and be better. I loved seeing her family relationships, her faith and more about her outside of band. She reminds me a lot of myself in high school, I was also a constant busybody in like all the things.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. Could've done without the Quidditch references though.

Rep: Biracial Latina fat asexual-questioning cis female MC, Jewish gray-aromantic gray-asexual male side character with ADHD and APD, side MLM pairing, Latino cishet male side character, Black cishet male side character, white trans male side character, nonbinary side characters, Latina cishet female side character, BIPOC queer male side character.

CWs: Toxic friendship, bullying (online harassment), emotional abuse. Moderate: misgendering, religious bigotry, discussions of sexual content, sexism, misogyny.

From the first paragraph, I knew this book would be a good one. I immersed myself into the book from the first chapter and I cannot say enough good things about this book! Honestly amazing! The writing is incredible and the plot is just one to die for. I am absolutely obsessed with this book. My favorite part would have to be the character development throughout the book. Character development is something I look forward to and this book did not disappoint.

This book was one of the sweetest things I've ever read! As a band nerd and flute player myself, this book felt like the representation I sorely needed. The way that the book describes being in band and playing flute and marching on the field during halftime all struck a chord (hah) within me. This book perfectly captures what it means to be a band kid. Other than the representation of band kids, the casual queer representation in this book was so amazing to read. The main character, Yasmin, is on the aroace spectrum, her love interest is aroace, her other love interest is queer of some sort, her sibling is nonbinary, and there is a smattering of identities represented in the rest of the low brass section (including a transmasc character!!).

The story focuses more on the main character's personal journey and relationships with her friends and family than any potential romances, which I thought were very well explored and defined. The main interpersonal relationships were between Yasmin, her childhood best friend Sofia, her mother, and her sibling Ellen. The broader relationships, such as Yasmin and the band and Yasmin and her section, were also well done and captured the spirit of being a band kid very well. I went into this story thinking it would be more romance-heavy, which it wasn’t, but the subtle moments between Yasmin and her love interest were so cute! I also loved the treatment of anxiety and social media in this book, plus the toxicity in band. People might think that band is a harmless activity where we just play instruments and make cool shapes on a football field, but there is so much drama and tension in band. I thought that this book captured the toxic parts of band just as well as the exhilarating parts.

The main thing I loved about this book is that Yasmin’s character arc is really defined. She starts out as a goody-two-shoes who is dependent on her best friend and bottles up all her emotions (as a gifted child in a nontraditional household does). She finishes the book as, well. Still a goody two shoes, but with an understanding that just because you’ve been friends for a long time doesn’t mean that who will always be friends, and with a realization that she doesn’t have to be perfect all the time. If you like smaller stories about personal growth and overcoming obstacles, I would highly recommend this book!!