A review by keeperofpages
The Silence Between Breaths by Cath Staincliffe

2.0

This book had been on my radar for ages. I was so intrigued by its premise; a story that takes place in one day, mainly in one location – a character driven story that plays out a situation we’d all be terrified to be in but sadly, a very real and possible situation. While I liked that this story touched on a very real subject, this book didn’t capture my attention the way I hoped it would. And this was because the book opens with an introduction to the characters on the train, narrated from multiple viewpoints, we learn about their lives and how they came to be on the train. My issue was simple, I found the characters boring – I understand Staincliffe portraying them as ordinary people and these are exactly the people likely to be on the train but it was all too ‘plain Jane’ for my liking. By the time the tempo of the book picked up, I wasn’t invested in the aftermath.

This is a fictional book and I found it read too ‘academic’ for my liking; yet as a character study, it didn’t go deep enough, as a character-driven novel, the characters weren’t interesting enough. I can see why so many people liked this book but for me it fell short. The anticipation, the tension, and most importantly, the emotion were all missing for me.

I was most interested in the subplot, featuring Saheel’s family, mainly his sister, and how things affected them but a subplot cannot carry a book so unfortunately, The Silence Between Breaths was a miss for me.