4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes
This book is the kind of fantasy that just draws you right in. It’s a fantasy mixed with a mystery and a heist as Chester tries to figure out what happened to his father. In this world music and magic are melded together. There’s regular music and then there’s Music which can pretty much control the entire world.
You have to be licensed to connect to Music and if you’re caught the Songshapers are not known to be forgiving aka you get sentenced to death. Plus being licensed and going to school isn’t really offered to you if you’re not rich.
Chester is untrained but finds himself breaking into Music while he’s supposed to only be playing music more often than not. This leads him to some very big trouble and to meeting a very interesting group of people.
This group shows him how different the world really is and shows him a lot of new tricks. The whole heist aspect of the story is great and the Music really adds to the danger.
The story is full of surprises and great relationships/friendships, plus it has a couple of major twists that I definitely didn’t see ahead of time.
