Thank you to NetGalley and dreamscape media for this audiobook copy of battle of the bands!!

I never knew I needed my anthologies to be interconnected until now. This was sooooo good! As a whole, I would give this 5 stars! I loved how it was at the same event following all these different points of views and what everyone was doing without feeling like I heard the same scene over and over. The transition between stories was flawless! I loved getting little snippets of a character and then later we came back to them and what they were doing. It was great!

Here are my individual story ratings:

Miss Somewhere by Brittany Cavallaro 3 stars
Cecilia You’re Breaking my Heart by Ashley Poston 5 stars
Sidelines by Sarah Nicole Smetana 5 stars
Battle of the Exes by Sarvenaz Taghavian 5 stars
Love is a Battlefield by Shaun David Hutchinson 5 stars
You Found Me by Ashley Woodfolk 3 stars
Adventures in Babysitting by Justin Courtney Pierre 3 stars
Peanut Butter Sandwiches by Jasmine Warga 3 stars
Reckless Love by Jay Coles 4 stars
The Ride by Jenn Marie Thorne 4 stars
Three Cords by Eric Smith 3 stars
Merch to do About Nothing by Preeti Chhibber 4 stars
All These Friends & Lovers by Katie Cotugno 3 stars
A Small Light by Jenny Torres Sanchez 3 stars
Set the World on Fire by Lauren Gibaldi 3 stars
Sisterhood of Lights and Sound by Jeff Zentner 3 stars

I gave this book 4.25 stars
This book had it all! Cute/funny stories and some a bit sadder stories. I'm glad both the authors and the characters are diverse. With some new to me authors as well as some new authors I'd never heard of but now want to check out their other works. The stories wove together beautifully, and everything came full circle which I enjoyed. Though some of the stories I wish were longer or made into their own books!

An overall great anthology!

While this book wasn't the perfect read for me, I would highly recommend it for my students. This book discusses important themes such as identity and who you are. I also loved that there was a diverse cast of characters, which is important for young adult/middle grade students.

Anthologies/collections of short stories are always a hit or miss for me, greatly depending on how cohesive the well written the stories are, and how they work together. This book was definitely a miss as far as my personal tastes go.

First of all, I found many of the characters from the different stories to be annoying and insufferable. As an 18 year old, I can't really see anybody between the ages of 16-18 enjoying and relating to the majority of the characters in these stories. I felt as though many of the stories didn't work together cohesively at all, to the point where shifting between chaotically different writing styles was detrimental to the reading experience.

I liked most of the narrators, although there were a couple I wasn't a fan of. I'm also not sure the grammar through some of the stories translated well into the audiobook; something that wouldn't feel weird to read but does feel weird to hear out loud.

Battle of the Bands is an anthology of several stories that all revolve around a high school Battle of the Bands. Because these stories are all written by different authors, they're not all created equal. Most of them are good though. My favorite of the stories was "Reckless Love". I loved the bi-positive message in it. The worst of the stories was Adventures in Babysitting which is a dumb story about teenagers doing acid. Mostly this book is a bunch of teenage drama with musical undertones.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this ALC. The narrators, too many to list here, all did an amazing job at bringing the stories they narrated to life.

I was provided an audio ARC via Netgalley, all opinions expressed are my own.

This was a really great complation of stories. I really enjoyed some of them and while all of them are well written, I don't think I am the target audience for this particular set of stories. Sometimes I had a hard time connecting with the characters and I think that is because my high school days are long past. I do wish I had books like this 20+ years ago, and I know this will be a smash hit with today's young readers.

I highly recommend this for young readers (older middle grade, teens, and young adults), especially those who are still figuring out who they are. As a music lover myself, I really loved how the battle of the bands connected all of the stories together in some way and some of them had overlapping characters. I also appreciated that this had a really diverse cast of characters, which is why I think this is really suited for a younger audience.

Each story is written by a different author and narrated by a different narrator. I liked that after each story there was a rock jingle to signal the start of the next story in the collection. Each narrator did a wonderful job narrating the stories and giving them life. I really enjoyed this compilation and highly recommend it!

4/5. Aside from really enjoying a good anthology of short stories, the stories being all under the same night sky or event really makes one great read. This is only the second book I’ve read that does this and would love to read more. Each story in this book is distinguishable and relatable for young adult audiences. At its center, the book is about growing up, taking risks, and thinking about your passions, your art, and the many relationships that you form pursuing them. I can definitely see a younger version of myself in some of the conversations and drama in the book. There are just some risks and decisions that I personally connected to and even revisited because of this book. Overall, it seems that was a night to remember for each of the characters. For most, it was a start of something new for various reasons. It makes you yearn to know what happens next for them (in their own book perhaps? haha)

The character connections between the stories can be subtle depending on the story (at least in the audiobook format), but there are so many characters that it could be hard to keep up. Personally, I wish I made a list of each of the characters in each story to reference while listening. Listening to the audiobook did give each of the stories their own voice which I also really loved. The standout stories/chapters for me were: Three Chords, Merch to Do About Nothing, and Set the World on Fire.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to and review the audiobook version of this title.