Bellweather Rhapsody

I loved Tuesday Mooney so, of course, I had to read Racculia's other books. I didn't expect to love this as much as Tuesday Mooney, but I almost did.

Lots of fun, particularly if you're a music person. All the loose ends wrapped up neatly, but for once I'm cool with that, because there were a LOT of threads, even if I didn't LOVE how all of them went. GREAT, richly drawn characters, especially outside the main two, Alice and Rabbit (though there's growth there). Hastings, especially, as the concierge who never left the hotel.

Don't let the fact that it took me the better part of a month to get through a YA novel deter you - my reading life has just been really unfocused and my attention span shot. I know I've read things so far this year, but I am hard pressed to remember what any of them were or what they were about. shrug emoji

This was a fun mystery! I was worried at first about Minnie but I'm glad she got to be a hero. I will also admit that it was tough, as a very mediocre college pianist, to read Viola's passages. She brought back a lot of memories of anguish about music and not being good enough that I'm sort of mostly over! :/

(4.5, rounding up - not tagging as historical fiction because it's set less than twenty years earlier than the publication date, and not tagging as YA because I don't think it is, even though it won a YA award. Anyway.)I LOVED THIS. It's like [b:The Westing Game 902 The Westing Game Ellen Raskin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356850909s/902.jpg 869832] crossed with a murder mystery crossed with [b:Dramarama 437590 Dramarama E. Lockhart https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437512851s/437590.jpg 3085471] (which is super underrated and I love), all set in the late 90s, and you might as well just go ahead and call this my catnip. Half a star deduction because I wasn't as interested in the adult characters and because the villain was just a little too flat as a character, but those are minor nits. I want to give Alice and Rabbit huge hugs and tell them it'll all be okay. And I want to reread this now that I know how it ends and see how everything fits together. It's phenomenal.

First of all LOL I somehow didn't realize this was a murder mystery? I picked it up because I though it was about gifted teen musicians snowed in at a hotel–which it is–but also there's more! I loved the different characters and particularly the reflections on what it means to be a teen who's very good at something vs what it means to be an adult who's very good at something. I could honestly have taken or left the murder mystery but that's just my own reading preferences.

This is an Alex winner, aka a grownup book with teen appeal, and I definitely think it would appeal to a lot of teen readers, particularly musicians/performers.

Holds your interest right from the start, total pageturner, characters you immediately become invested in. Also excellent atmosphere and lead-ins and slow-reveals. I think ultimately sort of a whodunit, but without being hokey or predictable. I also enjoyed the sense of the author having seen The Shining and found it iconic but insipid and knowing she could do better...while nonetheless building on its foundations.

This was so great and fun and absorbing that I totally forgot to pay attention to nature at the cottage for a while. Ooops.