Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Noteworthy, by Riley Redgate

Jordan Sun, a scholarship student at the ultra-prestigious Kensington-Blane Boarding School for the Performing Arts, dreams of singing in the school musical. Unfortunately, her low vocal range prevents her from making the cut. Again. 

But just when things are looking not so good for Jordan's future at Kensington-Blane (not to mention her whole performance arts future), fate throws her a bone: The Sharpshooters, the school's famed a capella group, needs a new member. This could be exactly the break Jordan needs.

Except there's just one catch: The Sharpshooters are an all male group. That's right. Girls need not apply. Even if the girl is deep-voiced and really talented

But desperate times call for desperate measures. So armed with a new short haircut and a men's department wardrobe, Jordan Sun becomes Julian Zhang, Tenor 1, and the newest addition to the Sharpshooters. 

And the madness spirals from there as Jordan/Julien juggles two separate identities, friendships, rivalries, and romances, all while the boundaries of gender norms and learning what it means to be herself. That sounds like a lot of drama, I know. I realize it also sounds pretty cliche. But I don't want to give too much away. I want you to read it for yourself.

Author Riley Redgate's new novel Noteworthy was a pleasure to read. It sports a cast of diverse and likable characters and has a fun plot that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat wondering how long it will be before the main character's big secret is revealed and what sort of fallout there will be (because one can only keep a charade like this up for so long). Like many books of this genre, the ending wrapped up very neatly, but that was really part of the overall package's charm.

Definitely recommended --AJB

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