Beck is just the sweetest, saddest character. His mind is filled with destructive thoughts all the time, but yet his five-year-old sister is his whole world. They adore each other, even though their German snark is next level. I loved how kind -hearted Beck was. He was passive until he's like - No OnE ToUChES JoEY! The music he writes!! (Gah, I wish I could compose. My siblings can. I just play what's on the page.)
K, so JOEY. I have never read a more accurate book description of a preschooler. They're cute, but ALSO SO ANNOYING. I loved how complex Joey was, and how she learns violence from her mother because children really are parrots. Maybe the sweetest part of this book was how Joey tries her darndest to cook Beck food. Bless her heart.
August is a gem. I love her family and her cake and her personality. The best banter of the whole book: "How could you lose a table?!" That was priceless. Beck is just shell-shocked by this goodness, and it's a beautiful thing.
The mom/maestro is kind of a basket case. I know that's kind to say, but she's mentally unstable to say the least. She needs help, and it's so bad that she was somehow left alone with two kids for that long. My only complaint with her was that I've been taught by professors at university. I was expecting a little more specific advice from her to Beck besides "Practice!" If she wanted him to be good, she could have said anything about tempo, balance of melody and accompaniment, dynamic changes (maybe not so much in Chopin), and other picky things. But maybe that's along the line of - she just doesn't care enough about her kids.
Altogether, bravo on the debut. I wish I could torture the maestro with my catastrophic attempts at Sibelius or Chopin. And the thing with Beck's name and the ending: I saw what you did there. Now I go to cry.