Silence

(review by Cat, not Phil)Having read several YA novels recently, I picked this one up as a Kindle freebie. Is the author or the publisher American? Either way, this book is supposed to be set in the UK, where students go to university, not school, they don't sit in booths in ice cream parlours, we use washing machines, not work them...I found this irritating. Why the copious swearing? Is this to 'prove that it is a YA novel'? Intelligent teenagers know that the 'f' word is not necessary. What on earth is a 'f-off building'? At least 28 obvious spelling and grammatical errors - the verb is 'practised', not 'practiced'; 'you're' means 'you are', 'your' means 'belonging to you'. Who doesn't know this?So why did I give this book 3 stars? I think my teenage daughter would enjoy the plot, and would find the main characters attractive; but the poor proof-reading and omission of words spoils the immediacy and the fluency of the read; whilst the placement of swear words just makes it silly.

I could not put this book down, I read this in a couple of days whilst being very sad it is a really good read really dramatic and twists and turns the ending well it leaves you wanting more felt it was rushed at the end poor Cole!, I won't go into detail as it will spoil the book.I am not sure that it is well written as the grammar could be better but I enjoyed reading this, Cole well I wish there were guys as believable as him, he is so young and yet so grown up - I am not being anti men it is just for a young man at school I cannot see this happening in this day and age! Oakley well my heart goes out to her! I know it's only a book but this kind of thing happens!This book is believable, sad dramatic and yes there is a happy ending,but, you have to read the second book! Give it a go light reading but a truly sad story.

Whilst this book is not terrible, it has a plethora of problems. Despite the fact that it has an interesting premise, the story itself is very generic, and full to the brim with filler. The premise is a good premise, and even the plot twist, though not the most original, could be heart wrenching and emotional. But it isn't. The focus in this book is all wrong, but the thing that grips me the most is that there are parts where it tries hard and comes so close to hitting the emotional mark. If it had focused more on Oakley's feelings about herself, instead of obsessing over how great a guy Cole was, it might have had more of an impact. Oakley's trip to the psychiatrist and her thoughts about what her muteness (still looks wrong, yo) was doing to her family have shades of what this book could have been. The filler about school (where everyone was a jerk for no real reason) and convenient bullies existed to force you to feel bad for Oakley.The big reveal/climax and Oakley regaining her speech takes less than two chapters. A lot of people claimed this was rushed, and I'm with the jury on this one! This should have been an extremely moving moment, I should have felt something. But I didn't. I was like "Oh yeah. Called it." It was almost like the author decided she'd had enough of writing the novel and thought "We'll just get on with it." Whilst the climax is not badly set up -- there's plenty of foreshadowing -- it's over in two chapters. And what's worse, it's explained in Cole's POV. What would be a perfect way to show Oakley's fears, her motivations for not talking and her decision to start again, her emotion, it's all explained in the third person by Cole. It was a golden opportunity to tie up the threads of the novel. To explain what happened to Oakley and why she's been silent for so many years in her own words. But hey, who needs depth anyway?

I think this storyline worked well and I enjoyed reading it; it was very different to what I would often read and i'm looking forward to reading the sequel. I think the only problem with the story was the mistakes and I slightly lost interest at one point and skipped to the end; I think that was simply because the writer really wanted to hold back that moment when Oakly finally speaks again to create tension but that wasn't very effective for me. I did feel that although the book had a beautiful storyline, I had already guessed the reason why she hadn't spoken in eleven years (I think). All in all the book was amazing and from what i've read, very original! :)

The book was in excellent condition, very fast delivery time, well packaged and the book was as described. Very positive experience and I would definitely order again and recommend.