It took me a while to finish this one. It wasn’t bad I just couldn’t get into it like her other books. I still adore her works and will continue to read anything she writes. ( )

Eleven-year-old Millie is psyched for the first day of middle school at a special school for the performing arts. But Millie has been homeschooled for all her life before this and she soon finds school to be more difficult than she anticipated. Meanwhile, her parents only care about her flute lessons, hoping she'll becoming a professional flutist one day. Millie is much more interested in J-Pop music and really wants to take the opportunity of going to school to make new friends -- so imagine her delight when she learns her new school has a club devoted to fans of J-Pop. But will her parents ever let her join?

This book has a really cute cover that looks appealing, and the general idea behind it is good, albeit not dissimilar from many other middle-grade novels about finding one's identity, maintaining friendships, balancing schoolwork with hobbies, etc.

This book just somehow lacked any heart. I really didn't feel for most of the characters, even though I know I was meant to and indeed some of their issues should elicit sympathy. They just never stopped being characters for me, feeling rather one-dimensional.

Also, this book should have been shorted by probably a third. So much of the beginning was just the repetitive sameness of Millie being worried about things over and over again. The "big reveals" involving her friends were only big reveals because they were intentionally drawn out. The backstories were very obvious to me as an adult, but honestly with the amount of clues sprinkled, I don't think anything will be a surprise to most middle-grade readers either.

I also felt like some of the writing was a bit clunky and leaned a little into the didactic. In particular, it was like the author felt the need to remind readers that lying was bad by making a point of it every time Millie hid the truth for her parents. A good story will let it be revealed that this is wrong and not feel the need to say it every time just because the readers are young.

That all being said, the friendships were sweet and the creative ways the students all tried to work together to solve their respective problems was exemplary of that. Also, the book finally picked up in the final third of it and became more engaging at that point. ( )

I feel like this book really required me to stick with it. It ended well, and the underdeveloped characters finally started to matter to me as the book went on, but I had to be willing to put in the time to get there. I was particularly troubled/mystified by Millie's relationships with her parents -- the 180 that happens in that relationship was gratifying but hard to believe. However, there were some things I really loved: the nonbinary acceptance, the whole-hearted fan enthusiasm, and that this book tackles abuse -- and the weird not-knowing that abuse is happening. Mixed bag. Not bad, but did not blow me away. ( )