"There is only one voice you must listen to, Caé Elissa. And that is your own."

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an ARC!
First of all, this was so promising! I love the premise, how magic is imbued in music and the roles of the singer and composer, the different songs and their effects....the political aspect of the book is simplistic, but it serves the purpose of creating tension and driving a wedge between Elissa and Lucio, as well as give purpose to our MC.

At first, I found Elissa's naiveté cute, it quickly transformed into stupidity and started to annoy me. I don't care much for the preachy tone of the novel as well. The pacing was very off as well, and that was probably what made this fall flat for me - up till almost 50% of the book, nothing much happens, there's no plot so to speak. And then, everything starts happening at once, the 'big' plot is revealed and in 100 pages or so our MC is able to not only find her way and her purpose but meet everyone she needs to meet AND end a war. Not only was everything extremely rushed, but it was oh so easy as well. Everything felt as if, literally, delivered by a higher power, and though I think some of it was the intended purpose, it could've been done better.

As I was approaching the end, I thought that maybe this would benefit as a duology, with this first book as an introduction and the start of Elissa's journey to find all the Voices and hone her magic and compositions. And by book two we would have Lucio struggling with his choices, maybe falling deeper or even trying to redeem himself somehow. The ending could've been the same, but it lacked development to get there.