Music flows in Sing Da Navelli's blood. When she enrolls at a prestigious conservatory, her first opera audition is for the role of her dreams. But this leading role is the last Sing's mother ever sang, before her controversial career, and her life, were cut tragically short.
As Sing struggles to escape her mother's shadow and prove her own worth, she is drawn to the conservatory's icy forest, a place steeped in history, magic, and danger. She soon realizes there is more to her new school than the artistry and politics of classical music.
With the help of a dark-eyed apprentice who has secrets of his own, Sing must unravel the story of the conservatory's dark forest and the strange creature who lives there -- and find her own voice. - Author's website
The problem isn't that this wasn't a great story - it was. The author did everything right. She hooked me in right at the beginning, and kept giving me little hints along the way as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on. You see, it isn't the WHAT of the story that I'm having a problem with. The WHAT of this story is just plain awesome. It's the HOW behind the what that is giving me issues. This is because the HOW, in my opinion, is just plain ridiculous. And it messes with the whole feel of the story.
The story FEELS gothic, even though it obviously isn't. I mean, there is no house, so it can't really BE gothic, but there are crows, and hey, for some reason crows just scream gothic to me (unless, of course, they are screaming ancient Celtic foreshadowing of death and the like, but anyway...). I don't think you can get much more gothic than crows, unless you have, well, a house.
But then the author has to come up with a reason for how the thing that has happened managed to happen in the first place. And that part of the story is really pretty Science-fiction-ish. Which is totally lame. I don't know what category this story would actually fit into, but it's definitely NOT science fiction. (MAYBE I can't figure this out because the author is trying to mix different genres, whereas if she had just come up with a different back story, it would have fit very nicely into a particular category!) I sooooooo wish she had come up with something better. Don't get me wrong, the concept she decides to use is definitely original, but it just doesn't fit with the rest of the story! And that's why I'm conflicted.
We have this totally unique story (maybe there is another story out there somewhere that follows the same premise, but I've read like 650 novels now and I haven't come across anything like this one). It is beautiful, and melancholy, and mysterious, and I LOVED it. But the weirdness behind it makes me go Say What Now?! and not in a good way. It's like, if I choose to ignore the premise behind the events, I can enjoy the characters and the mystery and the emotions and all the good stuff. Because there is just something about the good stuff that grabs me and drags me in and makes me say OMG. But then I still have that nagging knowing that there is a stupid _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (didn't want be a spoiler), and I wonder if I really want this book sitting on my shelf reminding me of how such an achingly beautiful and brilliant concept got, as my son would say, totally shrek't.
So this book remains on my list of books to buy, but there it sits, unbought, because I just can't decide what I think about it.
Rating: 4 ??? or only maybe 3 ????
Reading Level: N/A
Age Appropriate: Upper Grades
Genre: ????
Keywords: Gothic, supernatural, mystery, music conservatories, romance
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