Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Every Word You Never Said

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Every Word You Never Said by Jordon Greene

1 review

icarusandthesun's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I'm not looking for your voice. I'm aiming for your heart.

Queer romance, a non-verbal character, boys in skirts, a screw-you to heteronormativity, a breathtaking extra cover under the dust jacket? Uh, yes please!

When I saw Jordon Greene's Instagram post featuring the gorgeous extra cover for the hardback version, I was GONE. Pre-ordered it on the spot, because how could I resist??

But I stayed for the funny pop-culture references, the diverse cast of characters, cute romance and the important message that CLOTHES DON'T HAVE A GENDER.

I was positively surprised just how refreshingly creative this book was, with so many unique ideas, including Skylar being non-verbal, the dress-code and gender/clothes debate, someone actually being in a band, adoption, being Wiccan (!!!) and so forth. It's really nice to see so many groups and things represented and richly educational and mind-expanding as well.

But sadly there were also a few things I wasn't really fond of. One of them being the language - the slang, the use of pop-culture. It was brilliant at times and some passages really made me laugh, but some of it also felt very over the top. That is only a personal thing though, because I'm positive there are actually teenagers who talk like that, just not my friends and I, which made it a bit uncomfortable at times.

Skylar is a very insecure boy, having been pushed around and abandoned and abused. I get experiences like that leave marks on a person (duh), but wow, the insecurity in this book made his character kind of unlikeable. Obviously there's drama in the book, Sky and Jacob having a fight, because that's just how romances go. But the reason was so ??? Jacob wasn't ready to go full-on relationship mode with "I love you"s and stuff after literally two weeks and Sky got mad, pushed him away and then JACOB had to apologize and do some grand romantic gesture to win him back when he did nothing wrong. That made me mad, like crazy mad. I get being insecure, but it's something you yourself have to work on and if it affects your relationship with other people, it's something YOU have to try to fix, because no one can do it for you.

And lastly, and this contains spoilers for the characters Seth and Imani -

I thought their relationship felt forced. Sure, it was hinted at throughout the book, but I still really hoped it wouldn't happen. Because they're best friends and I didn't feel any romantic chemistry between them. I would've loved for them to just stay best friends because that's their whole dynamic. Not everyone needs a relationship at the end of the book for the book to be good and for the characters' lives to be fulfilled. Idk, it just felt forced.

Still a great book though, I enjoyed it a lot and I'm looking forward to reading more Jordon Greene in the future.

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