
Author: Jessica Khoury
Genre: Childrens, fantasy
Rating: 3/5
# pages: Audiobook ~9hrs
Date read: October, 2022
Things are finally looking up for Amelia Jones: she's officially a Mystwick student, and she even has a teacher to help her learn how to use her rare Composing magic. When Mystwick enters an international magic competition, it’s Amelia's chance to Compose something that will help them win the day. The only problem is that she still doesn’t understand how her powers work. But then she hears about a super exclusive Midnight Orchestra—half performance, half magical black market—and Amelia is sure that’s where she’ll find the answer to her Composing problem.
But the Midnight Orchestra is far more sinister than it initially appears and if Amelia can’t unlock her Composing powers, not only will Mystwick lose the musicraft competition, she won’t be able to rescue her friends from the danger unleashed in this thrilling adventure.
Unfortunately not nearly as good as the first one. Amelia keeps making bad decision after bad decision, which got really old fast. Some of it made sense, but mostly I just WISH she'd talked to people about her issues, instead of trying to sort everything out herself. It was bound to go wrong.
Also, one of my favourite things about the first book was the way it used background music as an integral part of the story. Yes, it got distracting at times, because I'd be listening to the music rather than the words, but it was charming and worth it! In this book, the background music was much rarer, much lower (an editing decision, I know) and just seemed tacked on as an afterthought. Especially as it often didn't even fit the description - e.g. the words mention an obo, but you could hear strings, or it would talk about being a "lively tune", but the music played was really slow. That was far more distracting - and not nearly as charming - than the music itself had been in the first book.
The book improved as it went along, but I'm not at all sure I'll want to read the next one. A shame - I LOVED the first one.