Signal to Noise

In talking about it you realize that Moreno-Garcia takes common themes and makes them better.
To say Meche is stubborn is just another throw-away adjective used describe a pantheon of YA protagonists but is so much of what makes up Meche. She is unlikeable in the way so many teenagers are - filled with contradictions and big emotions. The duo of Meche and Sebastian, two friends so comfortable in their own skins with each other yet attracted to absolutely the wrong people, all but telegraphs the subsequent plot but right away we're challenged when we jump 20 years to the present and a grownup Meche who hasn't been with, much less even talked to Sebastian for the past 2 decades. Now it becomes the mystery of what happened. It takes what could have been a standard YA magical fantasy into something more considered and moving. Magic has a price.