Review: A Thousand Perfect Notes

A Thousand Perfect Notes by C.G. Drews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*sobbing*

WHY WOULD YOU WRITE THIS STUPIDLY PERFECT BOOK OF FEELINGS GUHHHHHHH

My heart hurts.

SO MUCH.

This book is a thousand times more brilliant than I was expecting.

I'M SORRY BUT I CAN'T DEAL WITH MY EMOTIONS RIGHT NOW.

***

5 hours later ...

Wow.

Okay. So.

I was so determined to not be influenced by Cait being a GR celebrity. It probably made me even more cynical and harder to please going into it.

Her style is unique, and while the tone is completely different from her sassy book reviews, the language she uses has the same beauty and originality. This book is full of such incredible visuals, and the way she describes music in particular is magnificent poetry. I was easier to win over than I anticipated. At first I thought it was a little too much, but as I relaxed into the story, I really latched on to the emotion in these descriptions, and they wreaked all kinds of havoc on my heart of stone.

The story is depressing - it's bleak and full of horrible things that will make your heart ache. But that subtle glimmer of hope is what makes it so powerful: you feel distressed about what's happening but you still have this notion that one day, things might be better. I fell into it so quickly, and became absorbed. This book had the elusive effect of making me forget I was reading, so it tore me apart that much more effectively.

YA is generally light and fluffy and all about that romance, so this darker subject matter was quite powerful, and I loved that the relationship between Beck and August wasn't pushed too forcefully on us. Ultimately, Beck is a broken character with a whole ton of issues and the presence of August doesn't obliterate that which was really important. Honestly, I can't fault anything about the story because it was beautifully expressed and had a perfect blend of elements. It's overwhelmingly dark, but there's still comedy, and sass, and adorable characters and moments.

Reading this book gave me such a visceral response; there are very few books that have made me cry but I just felt so much in this one. Beck's pain is so real, and that fragile spark of hope makes the punches land that much harder. I felt such an overwhelming sadness reading this but I was still waiting for things to get better. I almost took on Beck's emotions, and by the end of the story I'd kinda just given myself permission to cry it all out. What. A. Mess.

I don't drop 5 star ratings all that often but this won me over so completely that it seemed disrespectful to rate it anything lower. This is not a fun read, but I think it's important, and it's written so brilliantly that it is hard to imagine anyone having anything negative to say. You can really identify the time and care that went into perfecting this story.

Honestly I have so much admiration for the author's gift of expression, and I look forward to reading what comes next.

Now excuse me while I go pick up the tiny pieces of my shattered stone heart.

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