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Apr 14, 2018PimaLib_ChristineR rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
If you even like music somewhat you should read this book. If you believe music is a contact sport, you should read this book. If a mirror fogs up when held under your nose, you should read this book. First, let me apologize to whomever got this book after me at the library, for the slightly wrinkled pages from my ugly cry. But don't let even that put you off this book, because it isn't, generally, a love story or even overly emotional, unless it comes to describing music. When people describe it as gentle, or lyrical, it's hard to define exactly why, but it is exactly those things. Joyce is gentle with her characters. Their average lives are not up for mockery. None of them is trying to change the world or become famous or even move out of their run down little corner of London. Joyce takes the average and raises it into the sublime. If I had to make a comparison, I'd say it was the love child of Hornby's High Fidelity and Jeunet's Amelie. Frank owns a record store while the rest of the world is buying CDs. His specialty is knowing exactly what a person needs to hear. Ilse is a mysterious German who walks into his life by accident, but somehow intrigues Frank because he cannot tell what she would like to hear. In this, he is deaf, not only to her, but to his own, heart. The cast of this little run down street of shops is endearing without being cliche. Father Anthony, Maud and Kit all make up Frank's world until Ilse asks for, what I'll call listening lessons. As other's have noted, the end jumps a bit, but I don't think there was a cleaner way to do it, and Joyce makes up for the jumps with one of the best finales of all time, which should be put on film, probably by Jeunet. This is a book I want to talk about, listen to the soundtrack from, and possibly hand out to strangers on the street. Save me some money and check it out from your local library as soon as possible.