Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Radio Silence

this book makes me feel so weird... I don't know how to explain it, but it reminds me of a night in August when I was outside with all my friends. We were lying on my trampoline, looking at the stars, some shitty cavetown song playing. We talked about this girl who had run away. Then we saw this light flashing in the sky. We thought it was a plane. Or a satellite. Or a UFO.

We thought we were all going to die.

I don't talk to those people anymore. I don't even like them anymore. But that's how this book makes me feel, like I'm back there, in that moment.

It makes me feel so terribly sad but I don't want to cry. So I won't.

Does that make sense to you?

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oleana's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book was a bit difficult for me to get through, and it felt a bit messy and confusing during bits, but overall, I think it will really stick with me. There were really strong characters and moments for those characters, as well as relationships built over the course of the book. The plot was lacking in bits, and the pacing was inconsistent, in my opinion. I thought it showed really beautifully how a friendship can be built and how two people can love each other so platonically. I loved that it was a story about friendship love and not romantic love, and I loved how diverse in ethnicities and sexualities the characters were. This was not one my favorite books of all time, but it was sweet and lovely. I recommend it to anyone who has no idea what they want to do in life and is stressed about school and college, or to someone who knows EXACTLY what they want to do.

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lilly_anne's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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yush's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

The book is written from the perspective of a teen girl in her senior year/s of high school. As such, at points, it is a little hard to read as it becomes too cringe or sometimes a little cliche.

I found the book to be a quick read (I read it in 2 days) and I loved the LGBTQ+ representation and the racial representation.

However, I did find the plot to be a bit lacking.

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jbfaith_04's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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isaac_c's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Radio Silence is very concerned with each character's sexuality, and I think this could've been handled with a bit more grace. Conversations on the topic often had an unnatural flow (in my opinion), like the reader was being spoken to more at times than the characters were. The narration had similar issues, but that's slightly more excusable. Also...

“I think everyone’s a bit bored with boy-girl romances anyway,” he said. “I think the world’s had enough of those, to be honest.”

This line irks me so much.

Frances, the protagonist,

is bisexual. The fact that the book gives so much focus to queer struggles and misunderstood identities, but also kind of spits in the face of bisexual people interested in boy-girl relationships. Am I nitpicking? Maybe a little, but I'm on my soapbox and I'm tired of the rhetoric that bisexuality is only cool if you don't actually date people of the opposite gender. (And this is never mind that "boy-girl romances" could include transgender representation, as well.) Anyway—

The characters sometimes came across as younger than they were. A lot of Frances' mistakes and struggles felt a bit out of place for someone 17~18 years old, with a very supportive and involved mother at that, who had worked extremely hard to seem 'clever.' Maybe it's just me, I couldn't see myself in her shoes.

Then there's Universe City. I was looking forward to the podcast element of this novel, but I didn't really feel like it was explored very well. It doesn't really come across as super interesting or captivating, but it's treated as such by the characters. Not even getting into the title, lol.

As well, I felt like the entire leaking of identities online wasn't given enough weight. Frances really should have known better than to confirm her full name and location to Universe City's rapidly growing audience to begin with—that really confused me—and despite the fact that she did this, not much trouble came her way; on the other hand, Aled was sent death threats even though he was only assumed to be the creator.

It wasn't bad, but I didn't really resonate with it. The story is largely about academic struggles around starting college, and given that I am in my twenties and never went to public school nor college, I'm not really the target demographic. In general, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to an older audience.

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