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anna_booklabpartner 's review for:
A Quiet Kind of Thunder
by Sara Barnard
If you’re going into this book expecting an endearing story of love and acceptance and character growth, I’m telling you now to lower those expectations A LOT. Because all this is is nearly 400 pages of infuriating nothingness told to you in the most juvenile, straightforward-with-no-subtlety writing.
Nothing happens except ridiculous instalove, lying and going behind your own families backs, awkward handjobs and sex, and “conflicts” being solved wayyy nicer than they should have been.
Steffi is insufferably selfish and I never once felt any sympathy for her because she causes all her problems herself and never apologizes for them. Her family is weird and inconsistent and feel like they only exist (especially her mom) to make Steffi the victim. Rhys is too perfect and needed more depth other than just being deaf, which is obviously a huge obstacle, but he had no other personality. I even felt a little bad for him for constantly putting up with Steffi’s nonsense (the amount of times he apologized to her and she doesn’t accept them MADDENED ME). Tem is obnoxious for most of the book except for all of one scene, when she’s the most sensible, realistic character in this whole mess. But then she and Steffi are besties the next day and everything is all happily ever after, which is so unbelievable.
I don’t have much knowledge or experience to comment too much on the depiction of Steffi’s mental health issues, but I just felt like they were handled really poorly and were not consistent. Idk about you, but I feel like someone with severe anxiety would not have been that chill about lying to her parents and running away to another country. And her selective mutism wasn’t really a huge part of the story like it was sold to us to be. Idk, that part was also wildly inconsistent.
Also the writing? This is some of the most basic writing ever, there’s absolutely no nuance or subtlety and I swear there was close to zero sensory details. I had no idea what anything looked like except for Tem and Rhys’s hair, what anything smelled like, tasted like. No imagery whatsoever.
Was this book supposed to make me sad? Happy? Overcome with emotion? Because the only reactions I ever had were:
- physically cringing
- loudly groaning
- saying out loud “oh my god are you serious?”
- and furiously texting my friend that I buddy read this with to rant about how stupid this is
I definitely felt like I was too old to read this, and I’m as old as the stupid characters are. Nothing made sense, nothing even happened, and I feel like I wasted my time. I don’t usually give 1 star ratings but this was actual torture. I did finish it, but that was because I wanted to know the ending. And I gotta say? So not satisfying. I would’ve been more satisfied if he broke up with her and Tem stopped being her friend. Because I’ll be honest, Steffi deserved far more consequences than she got.
Nothing happens except ridiculous instalove, lying and going behind your own families backs, awkward handjobs and sex, and “conflicts” being solved wayyy nicer than they should have been.
Steffi is insufferably selfish and I never once felt any sympathy for her because she causes all her problems herself and never apologizes for them. Her family is weird and inconsistent and feel like they only exist (especially her mom) to make Steffi the victim. Rhys is too perfect and needed more depth other than just being deaf, which is obviously a huge obstacle, but he had no other personality. I even felt a little bad for him for constantly putting up with Steffi’s nonsense (the amount of times he apologized to her and she doesn’t accept them MADDENED ME). Tem is obnoxious for most of the book except for all of one scene, when she’s the most sensible, realistic character in this whole mess. But then she and Steffi are besties the next day and everything is all happily ever after, which is so unbelievable.
I don’t have much knowledge or experience to comment too much on the depiction of Steffi’s mental health issues, but I just felt like they were handled really poorly and were not consistent. Idk about you, but I feel like someone with severe anxiety would not have been that chill about lying to her parents and running away to another country. And her selective mutism wasn’t really a huge part of the story like it was sold to us to be. Idk, that part was also wildly inconsistent.
Also the writing? This is some of the most basic writing ever, there’s absolutely no nuance or subtlety and I swear there was close to zero sensory details. I had no idea what anything looked like except for Tem and Rhys’s hair, what anything smelled like, tasted like. No imagery whatsoever.
Was this book supposed to make me sad? Happy? Overcome with emotion? Because the only reactions I ever had were:
- physically cringing
- loudly groaning
- saying out loud “oh my god are you serious?”
- and furiously texting my friend that I buddy read this with to rant about how stupid this is
I definitely felt like I was too old to read this, and I’m as old as the stupid characters are. Nothing made sense, nothing even happened, and I feel like I wasted my time. I don’t usually give 1 star ratings but this was actual torture. I did finish it, but that was because I wanted to know the ending. And I gotta say? So not satisfying. I would’ve been more satisfied if he broke up with her and Tem stopped being her friend. Because I’ll be honest, Steffi deserved far more consequences than she got.