Book Review: Muted by Tami Charles

Thank you Scholastic Inc for my free finished copy.

This book was SO heavy. I was not prepared for this book to punch me in the gut the way it did. 🥺 Not at all. 

 Also if you’re a fan of audiobooks I recommend listening to the audio as well. In typical fashion I forgot I pre-ordered the audio so I read along as I listened. The audiobook sounded like a soundtrack and I loved it! Charles is the narrator and she did a wonderful job. Especially with the last few chapters. 

CW: Abuse, Eating Disorders, Divorce, Manipulation and Rape.

About the Book:
A ripped-from-the-headlines novel of ambition, music, and innocence lost, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Jason Reynolds!

Be bold. Get seen. Be Heard.

For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.

So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean “Mercury” Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights — plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.

Until they’re not.

Denver begins to realize that she’s trapped in Merc’s world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.

Inspired by true events, Muted is a fearless exploration of the dark side of the music industry, the business of exploitation, how a girl’s dreams can be used against her — and what it takes to fight back.