Synopsis:
“You can never go home again,” the saying goes—but Hal, Athena, and Erin have to. In high school, the three were students of the eccentric Professor Marsh, trained in a secret system of magic known as the Dissonance, which is built around harnessing negative emotions: alienation, anger, pain. Then, twenty years ago, something happened that shattered their coven, scattering them across the country, stuck in mundane lives, alone.
But now, terrifying signs and portents (not to mention a pointed Facebook invite) have summoned them back to Clegg, Texas. There, their paths will collide with that of Owen, a closeted teenager from Alabama whose aborted cemetery seance with his crush summoned something far worse: a murderous entity whose desperate, driving purpose includes kidnapping Owen to serve as its Renfield. As Owen tries to outwit his new master, and Hal, Athena, and Erin reckon with how the choices they made as teens might connect to the apocalyptic event unfurling over the Lone Star State, shocking alliances form, old and new romances brew, and three unsuccessful adults and one frightened teen are all that stand between reality and oblivion.
Review:
At its core, The Dissonance is a story about unlikely friends, with a hefty side of magic. As a standalone, there is a lot to unpack in this book, but it was a fantastic read. I’m not sure my review is going to do it justice, but I’ll try.
It’s set up in a dual-timeline format; the three main characters as teenagers in the late 1990s, and then as adults in 2019 (with the addition of Owen for the “present day” part of the story.) In the 1990s-era portion of the story, Hal, Athena, and Erin have known one another since childhood, but as they enter high school, they learn they can use the Dissonance, a form of magic. Along with their friend Peter, and his grandfather, they begin to study the Dissonance and attempt to unlock some of its secrets.
One of my favorite aspects of the teenage half of the storyline was the nostalgia it brought. The main characters would have been a year older than I was, so many of the music and video game references took me back to my own high school days.
In the present day part of the story, the main characters have scattered across the country and started new lives away from Clegg, Texas. They’re all still attached to the Dissonance in some way, but can no longer use it as they once did (why that happened isn’t revealed until much later in the book.) But weird things begin to happen, which pulls them back together 20 years after they initially split up. Part of this story is also Owen’s; he’s a teenager, and the victim of an internet necromancy ritual gone wrong. I didn’t immediately see the connection between his story and the other characters’, but it is revealed later in the book. Of the four present day characters, I liked Owen’s story best. I have a soft spot for characters who are thrown into impossible and horrible situations, but who never lose themselves along the way—and Owen was one of those.
The Dissonance itself was an interesting element of the story. The working theory of its scholars is that it resulted from a disconnect or disruption of cosmic forces, which is why it can only be accessed by those who harbor significant pain or negative emotions. Each of the main characters has a different aptitude with the Dissonance; for example, Peter is more attuned to plants and nature, while Athena is adept at the more theoretical aspects of it and can create new ways of using it, based on existing texts.
But it’s not all fun and games with magic. There’s a lot of darkness in the book, and some scenes that straddle the line between fantasy and horror. The villain of the story wasn’t who I initially suspected, but when they were finally revealed, it made complete sense (although my one complaint is that the villain’s motives weren’t always clear. There were a few things that were never answered, and I wish we could have learned more of why the villain did what they did. The desire for power alone didn’t quite seem to cover it in this case.) That aside, I thought the story was really well done. I definitely recommend it!
Leave a Reply