After a series of crazy storms that devastated the world, most people have moved to the cities. The Long family and some others are trying to revitalize part of New Orleans and make it self-sustaining so they can get a charter to be independent of the Federation. Henry (aka Hank) is the son of the mayor of what they call the Green (the revitalized part). He's a pretty average young teenage boy, except that he has a metal contraption instead of a heart to keep him alive. It's not a big deal norma [...]

Disclosure: This author is a friend of mine.I did not expect anything about The Loudness. Every time I thought I knew what this book is about, it twisted, or added something to the pot, or changed Henry's perspective and all of a sudden it was a brand new book. Above all, this is a bildungsroman, charting Henry's growth from a semi-schoolkid in a city struggling to recover from natural disaster, to his discovery of music and art and girls, to his discovery that the world is much better than he e [...]

It's not often that the dystopian world inside a novel turns out to be a place that I actually want to visit. That's the power of the world building in The Loudness. I can't help loving all of it--the homesteaders in the green zone, the "school" in an old library that has no teachers and lets you do whatever you want all day, the artsy "other side" with music, dancing, and free food. Excellent food. The story itself is also delicious. The fiercely independent green zone homesteaders and the outs [...]

I really loved this book. World building is incredibly important (perhaps the most important element to fiction) to me and I was very impressed with how credible Courage's dystopian society was, and yet even when there were terrible things happening (or that had happened) there was always a thread of hope that you could latch on to. The Loudness also spoke directly to two of my most passionate beliefs: 1) That music can save lives (see "thread of hope" above) and 2) libraries are the best sanctu [...]

This read a lot more slowly than I was expecting a middle grade novel to read. In fact, I was only 60% of the was through when I got to book club where it was being discussed. It was in sore need of an aggressive editor to trim the exposition, revise inconsistencies, and help get the plot to the surface. I'm choosing not to finish it.

Super excited to read this for many reasons, not least of which is that I know the author! Scotty got first dibs, so I'm just going to have to wait . . .

Absolutely fantastic! I can't wait to share this with my daughter and school librarian.

Not what I expected, hard to read, boring

Middle School Level - The dystonia takes a different twist than the other books I have read. This is what makes it very interesting. Younger readers could identify with the different characters.

Disclosure: I won a free giveaway of the audiobook version of this book on Audible and I'm a fan of the narrator, Maxwell Glick.I always like getting the opportunity to read something different from my usual tastes, particularly from independent publishers. In this case, THE LOUDNESS is a science fiction novel for middle school-aged children. Hooray! Start them early! What kind of sci-fi books were out when I was growing up? Okay, the ANIMORPHS and MY TEACHER IS AN ALIEN series were pretty forma [...]

Good dystopian. It had a slow start but lots of action toward the end. The abrupt ending left me wanting something a little more.

The Loudness is a fascinating read that builds up to an awesome climax that left me wanting more. The world Nick created just felt so real and the story always kept me on my toes. At various points I'd think I know where it was going and then it would totally change directions. At times I thought it was about to fall into some cliché or some aspect of the story was completely unbelievable but nope, something would happen or be explained and then I'd be sucked right back into the story. This was [...]

I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. It was well-written, and was about New Orleans or some similar city, but I never really engaged with the story or the characters. (view spoiler)[ And suddenly the kid had super-powers, and then the book just ended - in a way that reminded me of the ending of the series finale of Angel. (hide spoiler)]

Slow, but well worth the read. Waiting on a sequel

3.75/5 stars.

good middle school bookNot my cup of tea