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Silver Elite is what happens when Divergent, The Hunger Games, X-Men, and Minority Report get into an anonymous telepathic group chat moderated by Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks from You’ve Got Mail, except with the spice levels turnt, and it's probably going to be one of the biggest books of the year. Hello debut author Dani Francis where have you been all our lives.
Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War
CWs for the book: Dubious Consent, Sexual Assault, Rape (off page), Unbalanced Power Dynamics, Violent Deaths, Forced Conscription
First, thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for the E-Arc in exchange for my honest review.
Second, I am so disappointed.
I was having an amazing time until about ch 15-17, and then it all went downhill from there especially chapter 46 in what was the worst reveal of a century. This review was a lot longer but I've cut it because I don't want the CWs to fall on deaf ears because I am livid due to not having any CWs mentioned before.
I found the MMC, Cross, to be irredeemable. I never recovered from what he said to Wren after she was so desperate to escape. It would have been one thing if he had showed any kind of remorse or at the very least growth, but that did not happen. Every single time he and Wren had a scene I shuddered. And no, I do not care about the reveal. If anything that made it worse. Not to yuck anyone's yum but this was not it for me. If I had known how hard this leaned into Dubious Consent I would have stayed away. Had I known what was going to happen to Tana and her father I would not have touched this with a ten foot pole.
PLEASE ADD CONTENT WARNINGS! These elements were a very unwelcome surprise and it ruined the entire book for me. This was going to be a 4 star book for me and the undisclosed CWs made this almost impossible to get through.
0.25 Stars.
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Drug use, Rape, Slavery, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Dani Francis holds no punches and presents the FMC's flaws and vices out the gate. Wren's impulsive and wreckless nature drives the plot at the beginning but she keeps getting herself into trouble throughout, which was good writing on Francis' part because I was losing interest at Wren's inability to realize she is responsible for the results of her actions. There are plenty of plot twists to keep the reader interested and distracted from the FMC's immaturity, especially when Wren meets her Wolf (Four).
This is definitely the start of a series and the book ends with a HFN. Find the trigger and content warnings as many hard topics and scenarios are presented in the story, like death of a parent figure and mental illness.
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault
I’m still wondering how I feel about this book. On the one hand I’m desperate to read a sequel, having loved the last 60% of it, on the other, the first 40% was pretty slow going with lots of plodding info dumps I could have done without. Wren at first was also a tough character to like, making some poor decisions but I was ultimately won over by her later development. I’d recommend this to fans of “Powerless” and anyone who likes a strong female lead, the action is well written and the romance spicy. I decided to give it a 4⭐️, because despite its flaws, it still enjoyed my time reading.
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail
Reasons for the one star:
Wren, our fmc, is a horribly unlikable person.
From the opening scene, we get a taste of Wren’s selfishness, superiority complex, and tendency to self-sabotage. While “escaping” from a one-night fling, she actively leads the guy on while telling everyone else how clingy he is. He is a Command soldier—part of the military oppressing her kind (Mods). She hates and fears Command soldiers, but also seemingly exclusively seeks them out as sexual partners?
I like a little brashness in a dystopian fmc (see: Katniss). However, Wren’s impulsivity is not due to a strong moral compass or sense of justice—she acts selfishly, and everyone around her has to deal with the fallout. She genuinely does not seem to have any forethought about the impact of her actions on others—they are all NPCs to her. We don’t learn much of anything about her supposed best friend, so their friendship isn’t believable. And of course all male characters are introduced by how hot Wren thinks they are instead of by normal physical descriptions.
I’m all for complex, varied, and even unlikable fmcs when it makes sense for the story. But there is no indication that the reader is supposed to be actively rooting against Wren as much as I was. She’s entirely unrelatable—and please, may this friendship never find me.
Cinder blocks and exposed pipes do not a dystopia make.
Silver Elite does the same thing I take issue with in many recent romantasy hits: the potentially interesting dystopian and sci-fi elements are an afterthought. They’re only developed and utilized insofar as is necessary to put the fmc and love interest into tropey scenarios (in the vein of playing Barbies as a kid and trying to make the Barbies kiss). I was truly intrigued by the promise of a dystopian world with an oppressive regime and an fmc with hidden abilities infiltrating the regime’s elite military squad. However, the author was clearly not interested in the political commentary that is inherent to the genre. For example, Wren notes that the Company is a “military machine” but its leader, the General, “has no need for politics or superfluous job titles.” This is just a bunch of handwaving to avoid the inherent politics of the world—partly because I think if the politics were explored at all, it’d be clearer that this is an unintentional villain origin story.
The romance = The Worst Couple You Know.
Wren and the main love interest are just terrible people being insufferable together and making it everyone else’s problem. It’s insta-lust, it’s toxic, it’s shallow. It’s 40 tropes in a book box special edition trench coat. The love interest has zero personality and is all inappropriate comments. (He’s also just really bad at his job?) And because the world building is generic and the stakes are not believable, the “enemies to lovers” is just giving sexual harassment in the workplace. This is copy paste the same romantasy couple we always get (right down to the tattoos and a certain special connection—iykyk).
Silver Elite is set to publish May 6, 2025, and is the first of a planned series.
eARC provided by NetGalley and Del Rey for review.
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Murder, War
Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail