Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto: Book Review

Not Another Love Song Book Summary

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto is a story about a cello player and a violin player (who are in the same orchestra), falling in love. Alex (or Xander) is a child prodigy and the lead of a famous band, while Gwen is self-taught. Alex doesn’t make the best impression when they meet, but they are drawn to each other because of their music and more. 

Not Another Love Song Book Review

Despite liking Forget Me Not and Julie Soto’s fanfic, I didn’t have great expectations for Not Another Love Song. The thing is, Forget Me Not felt more like women’s fiction than romance. Which is fine on its own, but when I pick up a romance novel, I want — well, romance.  And so my expectations were nice and low. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Not Another Love Song is readable, I’ll give it that. And I struggled to understand what was so enticing about it when objectively, not much is happening on the page. Then I realized — it was fanfic first. And a lot of that carried over to the final version. 

There are some standard fanfic scenes like the main character liking an old social media post of her love interest, or them having a food fight. But it’s also the way it was structured, the way it had a lengthy fluff section, the way it was over the top dramatic at certain points.  

Anyway, it worked for me in this case —  well, somewhat. The way Alex and Gwen worked on creating new songs and just playing their instruments together was tender and beautiful. The prose wasn’t bad and the dialogue was often great. 

But where things started to snag is, of course, in the romance department. 

Gwen and Alex fall for each other almost instantly and throughout their relationship talk of little more than music. Which I understand is important to them, but there has to be more connecting them or I can’t believe that their relationship will last very long after the book ends. They never seem to discuss their other interests, hopes and dreams, pasts, etc. There are time skips that could have been used to get them to actually talk and connect. Instead we get a quick rundown of whether he looked at her and how much. 

I didn’t like how Gwen was already a fangirl of Alex’s band and him especially. While she did sort of stop obsessing over him when they met (and he made a bad impression), she still listened to the band, watched their videos, and stalked them on social media. It just felt a little off and uncomfortable to me. 

This is especially true for later when she keeps insisting that Alex the person and Xander the persona are two different people and she only loves Alex. I understand that there was meant to be some depth here and the intention was to show she isn’t in love with him for his fame, but still. There wasn’t enough difference between the person and the persona for it to make sense. 

Other than the main couple and a few of their friends, all other characters seemed intent on exploiting them or guiding them one way or another. They all have opinions on what Alex and Gwen should do with their careers. And this would be fine if only Alex and Gwen had any sort of goals or at least inklings of what they want to do. Gwen is especially bad and just goes along with whatever other people tell her. 

She’s super naive and immature. Instead of actually asking Xander what his intentions are, she makes the absolute worst assumptions and runs with it. But when a real, very obvious villain is right in front of her, she does mental gymnastics to affirm they actually mean well. 

I wasn’t a huge fan of the spicy scenes — but then again, I rarely am. The one featured on the cover felt weird, and not just for the logistics (because how is she still playing the cello). The worst one by far, though, was the time when the third-act conflict happened. Because they started fighting in the middle of doing it. I just tried to erase it from my brain. 

Anyway, the third act conflict felt silly. And the resolution of it was slapped together without much thought — it was too easy and unsatisfying. They never discuss any of their issues (and there are many). Instead, they have sex and move on. Secondary characters make up with equal breeziness, as if they aren’t separated by a decades-old grudge. 

Overall (and despite everything above), this book was enjoyable in the way fanfic is. It’s bound to become a social media hit. It’s an average read in every way without ever being insultingly bad or surprisingly good. I do love the aesthetics of two classical musicians falling in love over music, but I would love it even more in a different book and with different characters. 

Highlights

• A violin and a cello player falling in love
• Decent prose
• Lots of music
• Perhaps too much music and not enough emotional connection
• An average, okay read

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