A review by oldandnewbooksmell
A Silent Voice, Vol. 1 by Yoshitoki Oima

emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Shoya is the school bully and when Shoko, a girl who can’t hear, transfers to his elementary school, she becomes his latest target. Shoya and his friends torture her together. But when the bullying goes too far and Shoko is forced to leave their school Shoya shoulders all of the blame and is left alone. Six years later, the two meet again.

The beginning of this did throw me off just a little bit, as it jumps right into Shoya finding Shoko again and I thought I honestly may have picked up the wrong volume of the series. But, it does jump back again to the six years before a few pages in. It was one of those things where I read the book and then went right back to the beginning to read the first part again to make sure I caught it.

Overall though, I believe this is a good start to the series. In most of the parts, it really made me hate Shoya and the way he treated Shoko, which is kind of the whole point of his backstory and the redemption arc I’m sure is to come.

This volume also made me feel so bad for Shoko - she not only has everyone bullying her at school, but her own Mom is kind of a jerk too (yes I know she’s trying to “toughen her up” but there are better ways of doing it).

I’ve been interested in reading Deaf characters in stories this year, especially manga or graphic novels, to see how they are written and how they show their communication. There wasn’t any sign language in this novel, so I’m curious to see what becomes of this in the upcoming volumes. I was able to grab the whole series from my library and I plan on reading through them all.

Overall, this is I believe a good start to a series, though I am pretty glad I have the next volumes to read right away as I felt like this one was a bit lacking in the overall story and was only just the set up.
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