04/08/2025
Meet my new favorite book:
📚Sounds Like Love
✍️ Ashley Poston
🖨️ Berkley, June 2025
📍 Vienna Shores, North Carolina (US)
When one renowned songwriter got creative block, she came home and found something heartbreaking while also navigating the unexpected connection with this mysterious person. And by unexpected, I mean they can hear each other's thoughts...
I always love how every Ashley Poston book that I've read (A Novel Love Story, The Dead Romantics and now THIS MASTERPIECE) is magical, in its theme and its way of writing. The paragraphs are like poetry with a sprinkle of humor and-- honestly-- they prompted me to write a review like one, too.
As romance is predictably will bring us happy-ever-after ending, the key to a good one is the story in between. And this novel ticks all my perfect-cozy-emotional-romance boxes. It's funny in a weird and sweet way. It's got that friendship and family into the mix. There's inevitable tragedy but with hopefulness etched in bits and pieces. There's a pull every time a chapter begins and ends, and a thread connecting the beginning to its end.
Jo and Sebastian's chemistry was sweet, but the relationship of Jo's family and a few people of Vienna Shores were just as intriguing. It's not a surprise for me that Poston can make the setting alive but it's still touch my heart how she can create deeper connections between humans and places; in this book, it's especially the Revelry. Poston plays with time, people, memories, and our hearts like she's breathing.
I listened to the audiobook and tbh when it wasn't very phenomenal when sung, but the song touches my heart and ofcourse I ugly cried. It reminds me of all memories and good days and silly little things with my friends and family. Everything in this book touches my feelings and make me grateful.
Jo's mom has dementia and it pretty much became an important topic throughout the story. I'd say this is the way a romance novel can talk about such serious (and heartbreaking) topic while still being hopeful but realistic. There's a sense of both acceptance and motivation.
It feels like home.
It does sound like love.
