The Color of Sound - Emily Barth Isler - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Emily Barth Isler

GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: March 5, 2024

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade timeslip story about a girl who wants to be seen for herself than for her prowess with the violin. Interesting themes, nice story. A bit repetitive at times, and too much ‘crush’ talk for my liking, but other than that, a pretty good book.

Plot Preview:

Twelve-year-old Rosie is a musical prodigy, proficient in the violin since a very young age. Her synaesthesia allows her to see music in colours and she also has an eidetic memory for tunes. All this means that her life revolves around the violin and practices and performances and everything else that can help steer her towards becoming a concert violinist, as per her demanding mother’s wish. But Rosie has had enough, and in protest, she has not played the violin in more than two months.

When Rosie is forced to spend summer with her grandparents, she bumps into another girl hanging about their old garden shed. To her astonishment, she realises that this girl is her mother, but from when she was twelve years old. Can Rosie use this strange time conundrum to become closer to her mother and understand her better?

The story comes to us in Rosie’s first person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

♫ Every chapter starts with a classical music term and its definition, which is later applied to the chapter in some way or the other. Quite interesting!

♫ Rosie’s character detailing is mostly great. Her emotions feel mostly accurate for a twelve-year-old. I also liked Rosie’s grandfather and his dog Vienna. The book also has some older teen characters in minor roles, and for a change, their portrayal is entirely positive. Such a welcome relief to see good teens in a novel!

♫ The focus on the dedication and hard work required to find success in a hobby. Love the way it threw light on the efforts invested even by prodigies to achieve success.

♫ The highlight on negative parental pressure, when parents stress children too much for success in hobbies and extracurricular activities, and also dictate what the child should do. Imposing your own dreams on your children is never right, and the book brings this out wisely. This lesson is more for the parents who might read the book, but it is still a worthy one.

♫ The details about Judaism and some of its rituals and beliefs. Also a glimpse of the Jewish experiences during WWII. Authentic portrayals are always welcome!

♫ The depiction of Rosie’s synaesthesia. Very realistically written! I couldn’t help contrast it with the portrayal of the same ability in the adult fiction novel ‘Hester’, which went so over the top.

♫ The author's note at the end, which reveals her writing choices for this story. I was not surprised to learn that the author is also Jewish, but I sure didn’t expect her to have synaesthesia! No wonder it felt so authentic in the story!

♫ A shoutout to the stunning cover and backcover!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

♬ The writing casually includes several terms related to the violin and classical music in general. It makes exceptional use of musical metaphors to convey Rosie’s feelings, and hence almost every scene has multiple musical references. However, this goes a bit overboard as well. Lines such as “I whisper pianissimo” or “A minor chord arpeggio thunders behind my ears” would make sense only to those readers who understand these terms. As I am aware of music, I got the cues without any problem, and I also accept that this kind of writing suits Rosie’s character. But will young readers understand such musical words? For example, if Rosie had been a baseball prodigy and used too many baseball idioms and terms, I know for certain I would have been lost! Comprehension gets affected when the writing becomes too technical.

♬ The portrayal of Rosie’s parents, especially of her mother, is a bit too one-noted. I wish the mother’s reasons for her behaviour had come out more clearly, but her character transitions are few and even those are abrupt. Moreover, there’s a scene where she loses her cool after Rosie invites strangers to her grandparents’ home without taking permission from any adult. I felt like her mother was completely justified in her anger, but she ended up depicted as the villain for a great part of the scene. Basically, her character development was good but it could have been better.

♬ There are too many themes, both major and minor, in the book: classical music, a grandparent with Alzheimer's, Judaism and Jewish beliefs, the Holocaust, intergenerational trauma, mental health issues, heartbreak caused by the death of a pet, broken friendship, minor character’s parent death due to cancer, first crush, pronoun preferences, good-touch-bad-touch and consent, improv acting, and to top it all, the time slip. While some of these themes are handled really well and I even appreciate each of these topics, I wish the book had focussed on some key areas rather than trying to cram so many important issues within a single story.

♬ The timeslip parts were the novelty of the book. Few MG novels, especially realistic ones, use time slip as a plot device, so kids might find this aspect almost magical. That said, there’s no explanation provided for the events, so if you want the reason for the events, that won’t happen. I do feel like the timeslip could have been better utilised as it felt too convenient at times, but no major complaints.

Bookish Nays:

♪ Personal preference: I never like middle-grade novels to delve too much into romances and crushes, though it might be realistic in today’s world. Rosie’s crush on one of the teens was annoying also because of the way it was written. Her constant references to the way she felt looking at him and when his arm brushed against her and how she was ‘smitten’ – it was too much for me. I remember having the same complaint in this author’s debut work ‘Aftermath’, but the idea is much more extended in this sophomore work. Those who have no issues with this topic in a middle-grade work can ignore this point.

♪ Rosie’s thoughts, especially wrt the timeslip, get somewhat repetitive at times.

All in all, despite the overload of themes and the silly crush, the story does leave a mark. I had loved ‘AfterMath’ a lot, so this falls slightly short of expectations, but it is still a thought-provoking read.

Recommended, but do look at the themes listed to see if something might be triggering for your child. This book would work better with discussions, so it could be a great addition to classroom libraries.

My thanks to Carolrhoda Books, Lerner Publishing Group and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Color of Sound”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.