I Cannot Read This Anymore - Radio Silence
Book information:
Author: Alice Oseman
Page: 403
Language: English
(I) bought from: Amazon
Genre: contemporary fiction, LGBTQIA+, young adult, romance, coming of age
Mood: motional, reflective
Pace: medium
Character driven> plot driven
Trigger warning: emotional abuse, child abuse, mental illness
Mood while I read: 😐🙂😐
It made me : lose motivation to read novel for about 1 month
Rating
Plot: 3/5 ⭐️
Character: 4/5 ⭐️
Ease of reading: easy, but become difficult because I did not want to read it anymore
Overall (not just from the above three): 3/5 ⭐️
Synopsis
Frances has always been a study machine with one goal, elite university. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret - not even the person she is on the inside.
But when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favourite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Then the podcast goes viral and the fragile trust between them is broken.
Caught between who she was and who she longs to be, Frances' dreams come crashing down. Suffocating with guilt, she knows that she has to confront her past… She has to confess why Carys disappeared…
Meanwhile at uni, Aled is alone, fighting even darker secrets.
It's only by facing up to your fears that you can overcome them. And it's only by being your true self that you can find happiness.
Frances is going to need every bit of courage she has.
Source: StoryGraph
Review
After finishing Loveless by Alice Oseman, I really wanted to read her other works. When I read the synopsis of Radio Silence by the same author, I was intrigued because I thought it would punch me as it would remind me of my old self.
However, after struggling to continue reading this book for 2-3 months, I decided to drop it. At first, I thought that the reason I was not attached to this book was that I read it irregularly, but now I think that it is because the plot is too blend for me. As for Loveless, it took only 2-3 pages for me to immerse into the story and to care for the character. In the contrary, I read more than 100 pages of Radio Silence, and other than the fact that Frances (the main character) is a bisexual and the relationship between her and another woman (because I am a sucker for LGBTQIA+ story), there is nothing making me want to read it (even the two things I find interesting cannot save it from being dropped). At the same time, I have to praise for the character writing because they have unique and memorable personality. But it turned out that the old me is not the same the main character (no complaint though).
In conclusion, Radio Silence can be described as if there were someone telling me that it was written before Loveless or it was Alice Oseman’s first novel, I would believe them immediately. Nonetheless, the rating is so high on Goodreads (4.21/5) and StoryGraph (4.25/5), so perhaps it is not as bad as I thought. Who knows? I may try reading it again in the future, but for now, I want to take a break from it.
