Muted

A ripped-from-the-headlines novel of ambition, music, and innocence lost, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Jason Reynolds!
 
Be bold. Get seen. Be Heard.
 
For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.
So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights -- plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.
 
Until they're not.
 
Denver begins to realize that she's trapped in Merc's world, struggling to hold on to her own voice. As the dream turns into a nightmare, she must make a choice: lose her big break, or get broken.
 
Inspired by true events, Muted is a fearless exploration of the dark side of the music industry, the business of exploitation, how a girl's dreams can be used against her -- and what it takes to fight back.
 
The first group of essays, “Work It Sista!” identifies the sites of black women’s paid and unpaid work. In “Foremothers: The Shoulders on Which We Stand,” contributors look to the past for the different kinds of work that black women have performed over the last two centuries. Essays in “Women’s Work through the Artist’s Eyes” highlight black women’s work in literature, drama, and the visual arts. The collection concludes with “Detours on the Road to Work: Blessings in Disguise,” writings surveying connections between black women’s personal and professional lives.