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3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
Vlot geschreven want ik bleef snel verder lezen, wel een niet zo geloofwaardig verhaal.
Ruby is a wonderful character. A 10-year-old heroine who is a brave and endearing young lady.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A boring book that makes no sense. The last 50 pages seemed like the suffering through 200 pages of truck driving would be worth it but the way this book ends is so stupid and frustrating.
Nothing in this book makes sense even though there was so much potential. The concept is great, I liked the twists and the overall story and characters (especially Ruby!) but the execution is terrible. If the first 250 pages were reduced to like a 100 and the last 50 were developed more and turned into another 100 and the ending scenes and twists written better and HAD THE ENDING and not just cut off with a fade to black without a resolution, I would've loved this book.
I'm so angry at this book. And so incredibly disappointed.
Nothing in this book makes sense even though there was so much potential. The concept is great, I liked the twists and the overall story and characters (especially Ruby!) but the execution is terrible. If the first 250 pages were reduced to like a 100 and the last 50 were developed more and turned into another 100 and the ending scenes and twists written better and HAD THE ENDING and not just cut off with a fade to black without a resolution, I would've loved this book.
I'm so angry at this book. And so incredibly disappointed.
You could read The Quality of Silence in the middle of a sweltering summer day and still catch a chill: first from the eyelash-freezing Arctic setting, and then from the creeping dread that grows with every page. Rosamund Lupton's thrillers almost always hit the mark for me—they're smoothly written, peopled with rich, complex characters, and each one is an entirely fresh experience. There's no rehashing of old ground here, and I mean that quite literally. Yasmin and her young daughter Ruby set out on the ice roads in Alaska's northern wilderness, a place so vast and desolate, it seems barely touched by civilization.
They're in desperate search of Ruby's father, presumed dead in a terrible accident while in Alaska for work. Yasmin doesn't believe her husband is dead, and when no one in authority agrees with her, she has no choice but to go find him herself. But there's an ice storm brewing and there are ominous blue headlights in her rearview mirror, a faceless but menacing stranger following them through the endless night.
Ruby and Yasmin take turns narrating, sometimes switching every couple of paragraphs, which is a bit disorienting. It wasn't difficult to follow, it just felt awkward and hurried—I would have preferred a more typical every-other-chapter pattern for readability. However, despite the occasionally jerky transitions, I warmed to Ruby's voice immediately. Profoundly deaf since birth, she has a unique and charming way of seeing the world. I love how Lupton shows Ruby's deafness as both a deficit that complicates their lives and a boon that makes her the special girl she is.
With regards to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy. On sale today, February 16!
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
They're in desperate search of Ruby's father, presumed dead in a terrible accident while in Alaska for work. Yasmin doesn't believe her husband is dead, and when no one in authority agrees with her, she has no choice but to go find him herself. But there's an ice storm brewing and there are ominous blue headlights in her rearview mirror, a faceless but menacing stranger following them through the endless night.
Ruby and Yasmin take turns narrating, sometimes switching every couple of paragraphs, which is a bit disorienting. It wasn't difficult to follow, it just felt awkward and hurried—I would have preferred a more typical every-other-chapter pattern for readability. However, despite the occasionally jerky transitions, I warmed to Ruby's voice immediately. Profoundly deaf since birth, she has a unique and charming way of seeing the world. I love how Lupton shows Ruby's deafness as both a deficit that complicates their lives and a boon that makes her the special girl she is.
With regards to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy. On sale today, February 16!
More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com
The story is rather too full of cliche for me - 'woman in jeopardy', and partial 'environmental thriller' were both just a little dull here. The journey across the snow was also far too long and uninteresting and I did a lot of skipping. That said, Ruby (the daughter) has a very strong voice and is by far the most interesting character in the book. I particularly liked how Ruby describes words by taste and smell. The sign language is also well used as a key part of the plot.
I also enjoyed the mother/daughter relationship and tensions, but Matt (the father) was just far too flat and really very annoying. He appears directly in the book at far too late a stage, and then launches into a huge section of 'info dumping' concerning what exactly has gone on, which is very amateur. It would have been better if Matt could have had sections earlier so we discover things in the same timeframe as he does - this would have been far more exciting.
In general, this book could easily have been cut by a third, and I suspect the film will be far better than the novel. That said, the final scenes of drama are fun (though anything would be good after that dull trawl through the snow!), and the ending surprisingly delicate.
I also enjoyed the mother/daughter relationship and tensions, but Matt (the father) was just far too flat and really very annoying. He appears directly in the book at far too late a stage, and then launches into a huge section of 'info dumping' concerning what exactly has gone on, which is very amateur. It would have been better if Matt could have had sections earlier so we discover things in the same timeframe as he does - this would have been far more exciting.
In general, this book could easily have been cut by a third, and I suspect the film will be far better than the novel. That said, the final scenes of drama are fun (though anything would be good after that dull trawl through the snow!), and the ending surprisingly delicate.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
No
I bought this book (thankfully - used!), because of its promising premise - a young deaf girl and her mother brave the barren land of North Alaska in the winter to look for her missing father, a wildlife photographer.
The book starts off well, and there’s a credible build up of suspense in true thriller fashion. I was engaged and wanted to know what happened next. Unfortunately, after a promising start, Lupton got bogged down in repetitive descriptions of the Alaskan landscape and the internal dialogue of Yasmin, the mother of Ruby, the deaf 10-yr-old. Ruby was the only character that I felt a connect to. She was charming, smart, funny and incredibly brave in the face of gigantic odds. I loved her tweets and how she describes what words feel and taste like to her! I wanted more!
Yasmin, I disliked intensely. As a mother myself, I have no tolerance for mothers (even in fiction), who act worse than juveniles because they cannot get over their childhood issues. Yasmin angered me with her absolute disregard for Ruby’s safety while purporting to care and love her daughter more than anything else. She was a liar and a coward and although she figured out her own idiocy toward the end, it was too little too late for me.
I loved the easy, close father-daughter relationship that Matt and Ruby shared. I understand that having lost her mother as a young child herself, Yasmin didn’t have a strong parenting role model, but after an entire lifetime, she should have learnt! Matt was an excellent role model and they’d been married a dozen years! I just couldn’t get past her bad decision making! Strangely, or perhaps because of my dislike of Yasmin, I couldn’t get caught up in the atmosphere, although Lupton does a good job with her descriptions of the raging snowstorms in the Tundra.
In the end, the entire journey felt unbelievable to me! How a woman who has no experience of the climate or of driving an 18-wheeler on normal roads, suddenly gad the skill set to do so in an Arctic snowstorm, I have no clue. The climax was also far-fetched I thought and although there was an interesting twist, once again, I didn’t really care. It was intriguing to read about ‘fracking’ though and the glimpses of Inuit life were engaging and I would have loved to read more details.
In the end, this was disappointing in terms of pacing and characters. The atmosphere should have worked throughout but did so most effectively only during the snowstorm portions for me, when I felt the menace and fear that Lupton infused into her narrative. For the most part however, it felt forced and repetitive, not sinister and malevolent as it should have. Perhaps if I’d liked Yasmin more I would have disliked the book less? 🤷🏼♀️ Also, I thought it was too long and could have been edited to make it more taut and tense. I felt like Lupton tried to include too many themes into the story and it jarred. Deafness, comin-of-age, marital issues (more imagined than anything else 🙄), environmental issues, each complicated and touched on superficially, except for the deafness and fracking, in my opinion. It took me a while to get used to her writing as well, which was choppy at first but became descriptive and easy as I read on.
Ruby will stay with me and I thought her coming-of-age story and her attitude toward her disability very well done, but I’ve read far better thrillers!
The book starts off well, and there’s a credible build up of suspense in true thriller fashion. I was engaged and wanted to know what happened next. Unfortunately, after a promising start, Lupton got bogged down in repetitive descriptions of the Alaskan landscape and the internal dialogue of Yasmin, the mother of Ruby, the deaf 10-yr-old. Ruby was the only character that I felt a connect to. She was charming, smart, funny and incredibly brave in the face of gigantic odds. I loved her tweets and how she describes what words feel and taste like to her! I wanted more!
Yasmin, I disliked intensely. As a mother myself, I have no tolerance for mothers (even in fiction), who act worse than juveniles because they cannot get over their childhood issues. Yasmin angered me with her absolute disregard for Ruby’s safety while purporting to care and love her daughter more than anything else. She was a liar and a coward and although she figured out her own idiocy toward the end, it was too little too late for me.
I loved the easy, close father-daughter relationship that Matt and Ruby shared. I understand that having lost her mother as a young child herself, Yasmin didn’t have a strong parenting role model, but after an entire lifetime, she should have learnt! Matt was an excellent role model and they’d been married a dozen years! I just couldn’t get past her bad decision making! Strangely, or perhaps because of my dislike of Yasmin, I couldn’t get caught up in the atmosphere, although Lupton does a good job with her descriptions of the raging snowstorms in the Tundra.
In the end, the entire journey felt unbelievable to me! How a woman who has no experience of the climate or of driving an 18-wheeler on normal roads, suddenly gad the skill set to do so in an Arctic snowstorm, I have no clue. The climax was also far-fetched I thought and although there was an interesting twist, once again, I didn’t really care. It was intriguing to read about ‘fracking’ though and the glimpses of Inuit life were engaging and I would have loved to read more details.
In the end, this was disappointing in terms of pacing and characters. The atmosphere should have worked throughout but did so most effectively only during the snowstorm portions for me, when I felt the menace and fear that Lupton infused into her narrative. For the most part however, it felt forced and repetitive, not sinister and malevolent as it should have. Perhaps if I’d liked Yasmin more I would have disliked the book less? 🤷🏼♀️ Also, I thought it was too long and could have been edited to make it more taut and tense. I felt like Lupton tried to include too many themes into the story and it jarred. Deafness, comin-of-age, marital issues (more imagined than anything else 🙄), environmental issues, each complicated and touched on superficially, except for the deafness and fracking, in my opinion. It took me a while to get used to her writing as well, which was choppy at first but became descriptive and easy as I read on.
Ruby will stay with me and I thought her coming-of-age story and her attitude toward her disability very well done, but I’ve read far better thrillers!
his voyage started when the police told Yasmina that her husband was dead. She didn't want to believe it although there were evidence confirming it, so with her daughter Ruby they started a cold and difficult travel to the Alaska to rescue Matt before it was too late.
Rosamund has enchanted me again with this beautiful novel; a mother and her daughter fighting against the world and the weather searching for their husband and father lost in the cold Alaska. You will be delighted with the romantic and beautiful prose of the Quality of Silence explaining how cold is the loneliness or how noisy can be the silence. Since the first book of Rosamund Lupton I have read all her novels, all of them emotive, sad but with a touch of mystery. Rosamund is one of my favourite writers, I hope you will love this novel like I did.
What would you do to find your loved one?
Rosamund has enchanted me again with this beautiful novel; a mother and her daughter fighting against the world and the weather searching for their husband and father lost in the cold Alaska. You will be delighted with the romantic and beautiful prose of the Quality of Silence explaining how cold is the loneliness or how noisy can be the silence. Since the first book of Rosamund Lupton I have read all her novels, all of them emotive, sad but with a touch of mystery. Rosamund is one of my favourite writers, I hope you will love this novel like I did.
What would you do to find your loved one?
Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I found I needed a little suspension of disbelief to enjoy this (would a mother really take her daughter on such a dangerous journey?) But once I got over that, the book was fantastic. The creation of fear in the reader was expertly done - my fingertips were buzzing!
I found I needed a little suspension of disbelief to enjoy this (would a mother really take her daughter on such a dangerous journey?) But once I got over that, the book was fantastic. The creation of fear in the reader was expertly done - my fingertips were buzzing!