Initial Reactions 9/10/14: oh my goddddddd that was SO GOOD. I expected it to be awesome but THIS WAS FANTASTIC. 
 The whole music relating to alternate worlds & science = brilliant. 
 I loved Delancy and I ended up LOVING Simon. And WHEW Erica O'Rourke can write some damn good romances. 
 THE PLOT WAS PHENOMMMM. THE ENDING! AND ALL THE STUFF IN BETWEEN. HELL yes. Now when does book two come out? LOL 
 Full review posted HERE on The Book Addict's Guide 10/6/14: WOW. I totally fell in love with Dissonance. I was hoping that this would be a book that I would fall in love with and I'm SO happy that I did. There were just so many "Brittany" things about it (based in the Chicagoland area, parallel universes, music, and of course, awesome romances) and they all worked so well together to create one amazing book. DISSONANCE is the first book from Erica O'Rourke that I've read so I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting myself into when I started. I had a review copy from Edelweiss but the fact that Erica O'Rourke was going to be at the event with Sarah J. Maas and Susan Dennard really pushed me to start it and I'm SO glad that I did because even halfway through I was in love, bought a physical copy, and had Erica sign it for me! 
 I've really been enjoying books with parallel universes lately but sometimes the science of it all can be a bit overwhelming. What I loved about DISSONANCE was the pairing of science and music. In the book, the Walkers (people who "walk" from universe to universe) are able to identify different worlds (and the problems within them) by certain musical pitches. A world may sound off or dissonant (ahhh, the title!) if there's a large error within the world. I won't get into the details as to how all of that works because it's explained so well in the book, but essentially this establishes the music tie-in with Walkers almost always having perfect pitch and the easiest way to describe things is often with a musical term. I've never played any instruments but I was a huge choir nerd in high school and college and took a music theory class so the fact that I was able to identify so many terms and concepts that I'd learned about in music theory had me really geeking out over the book. Combine that with the science (well, made-up science, of course (OR IS IT) but science nonetheless), and it was just the perfect amount of nerding out for me. 
 So enough fangirling about all of the world building (no, but really -- LITERALLY building worlds! So cool). The rest of the book was fantastic as well. I really loved the main character Del and connected with her a lot. I may not have chanced as many rebellious acts and school-wise, I was probably more like her sister Addison, but I felt like she was such an interesting main character to get to know and a great one to witness as she figures out what's going on with her life as these events unfold. The whole family dynamic was great, actually. It was wonderful to see two parents who were present (albeit busy with work for a lot of the time) and a grandfather who's still in the picture as well. The family wasn't always perfect, but they worked through their differences and I really liked watching all of those interactions between the two girls and their parents/grandfather. 
 The romance was fantastic as well! It was so interesting to see Del and Simon's interactions and exactly what transpires between them. Del ends up meeting Simon in other worlds and the more she interacts with him, the more she sees different sides of his personality. Since each world is a representation of a different part of him, it was really interesting to see different sides of Simon in different ways. I won't give away exactly what happens between the two of them and how it affects the main story, but this was definitely something that I loved witnessing and I adored how the two of them ended up connecting. 
 On top of all of this, the plotting is just fantastic. This book has some TWISTS, you guys. Some you could see developing and were really exciting to watch as they unfolded and others were totally surprising and knocked me off my feet. I was just so impressed with really everything about this book and now I am DYING for book two! DISSONANCE was my first book by Erica O'Rourke but you can bet it won't be the last!