49 pages • 1-hour read
Sounds Like Love
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Symbols & Motifs
“Sounds Like Love” Song
Joni Lark and Sebastian (Sasha) Fell’s song “Sounds Like Love” symbolizes intimacy and connection. At the novel’s start, Joni and Sasha start hearing a faint and mysterious melody in their heads. Once they begin communicating telepathically and spending time together in person, they launch a collaborative songwriting venture. They grow closer throughout this process, fostering a profound level of understanding between them. Working on the song encourages Joni and Sasha to be more vulnerable. They start sharing tender aspects of their past lives and emotional experiences. They develop trust and reciprocity. The song helps them share ideas and translate ineffable feelings into music.
Joni and Sasha’s song also connects them to their pasts, thus deepening their bond in the present. At the novel’s end, they discover that their mothers, Wynona Lark and Ami McKellen, began the same song years ago. Joni and Sasha magically received inspiration for the song and brought it to life decades later. When they perform it for Wynona, Joni realizes that the song manifests both her and Sasha’s romantic love and their individual experiences of maternal love: “Playing together, our voices harmonizing, felt like it did when we were in each other’s heads. I knew which way his hands would go; he knew mine. We were connected, but this time the string was music” (321). “Sounds Like Love” artistically and emotionally facilitates their intimacy and helps them honor their mothers’ friendship—and thus the historical origins of their distinct romantic entanglement.
The Revelry
As a music venue in Joni’s hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, the Revelry (which locals fondly refer to as “the Rev”) symbolizes both passion and community. The Rev has been a fixture in Joni’s life since she was a little girl. This is where her love for music blossomed as a child. Her mother taught her and her brother, Mitch, to play piano and sing in this location. In addition, spending countless nights at the Rev introduced Joni to various musical groups and artists. The space fostered artistic passion and brought people together via their shared appreciation for music.
As a setting, the Rev has a profound effect on Joni’s psyche. As soon as she returns to the venue, she begins to rediscover her creative side, thematically developing Music and Songwriting as Self-Expression. In LA, Joni lost touch with her musical passion and felt isolated in the music industry. Back at the Rev, she realizes that the connective power of music is still alive. Throughout the novel, she spends time at the venue alone, with Sasha, and with her family and community. Regardless of the context for her visits, the space offers Joni comfort and revitalizes her creative inspiration.
For these reasons, Joni is desperate to keep the old music hall alive. She’s devastated when her family informs her that they’re planning to close the Rev. To Joni, losing the Rev feels synonymous with living a life without passion or community. By the novel’s end, Joni makes the transformative decision to take over the family business and keep the venue alive. In doing so, she’s feeding her artistic passion and offering her community musical sustenance.
Vienna Shores
Vienna Shores symbolizes Joni’s past. When she returns to her North Carolina hometown at the start of the novel, she’s unsure of what to expect. She fears confronting her mother’s illness and encountering her ex, Van Erickson. Additionally, Vienna Shores holds her girlhood dreams and her adolescent shortcomings. When she returns to her hometown, Joni is immersed in the scenes, sights, and sounds of her past life. While there, she’s compelled to confront these aspects of her personal history to move forward. Ultimately, Joni reconciles with Vienna Shores and realizes that she still has a place there.
The setting also represents home and belonging. Joni moved away from Vienna Shores nine years before the narrative present because she wanted to reinvent herself. Although she did realize her dreams in LA, she quickly discovers that Vienna Shores authenticates her truest version of herself more than Hollywood ever could. The longer she’s there, the more she rekindles her connection with the local beaches, her old friends, and her family. By the novel’s end, she decides to give up her life in California to settle back in Vienna Shores with Sasha. This decision implies that Vienna Shores has been and will always be Joni’s home.
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