Wavelength: coming out from under the helmet

Wavelength

By Cale Plett

 This punk band novel will grab you from the first page. There’s a great mysterious set up, and just when it looks like the payoff is in sight, that we will find out what’s going on with Alexander, if not with his brother, the narrative jumps to Lillian, driving force in her high school band, who has just been dumped by her adored bass player, leaving the band torn by conflicting loyalties while its leader spirals.

Early on, much of the narrative is told with message chats, interspersed with one narrator or the other internalizing. It’s a style that works well and feels very contemporary. and even though we eventually realize it is teenagers talking, the issues they deal with are contemporaneous well into adulthood.: Education, breakups, coming out, the perils of being too recognizable, what to do with your life besides being part of something bigger?

Of course, these two worlds are going to collide, specifically over band practice. But since one of the participants is under deep cover, and the other is deep in emotional fallout, it is going to take a while to see where this goes.

Truthfully, after the frenetic feeling of these early chapters, the slowing pace feels like a relief, a chance to draw a breath, rather than a drag on the narrative. It’s really genius pacing for an age group raised on TikTok reels and 24/7 chat groups. Without the lulls, they would forget to breathe. it is the pause that refreshes.

Also, there are some delightfully snarky insights into the music industry, such as “lyrical, complexity of corn puffs”.

Something that interests me as a writer is that, because they don’t cross paths until the story is well begun, we readers literally don’t know what each narrator looks like. Each narrator eventually describes the other, illuminating the other’s appearance in their unique style/word choices, and that’s what gives us readers the full visual.

As the characters interact more in real life, and the text messages fade into the background, both narratives get a little bogged down dissecting every moment of their old and new relationships. The early tension in both narratives fades, the goals and consequences drift away, everything comes down to the immediate feelings. The intense interiority may not be a dealbreaker for you but, by the halfway mark, I was starting to yearn for some of that earlier tension again.

Fortunately, the stakes pick up again for both narrators, personally and professionally. Soon it is a breath-holding corkscrew read to the finish.

Themes include teen sexuality, gender identity, self expression, hyperfocus, rejection sensitive dysphoria, corporate pressures, music industry, and the anonymity of life as a corporate pawn.

Bonus content: 

The song 'Elevator' from the novel 

Link to Livestream of the book's launch on October 9th, 2025

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