Soundless by Richelle Mead

TL;DR turning a village upside down in a period of, like, four days

TBR #1179, added Apr 15, 2015

library ebook hold placed 9/17/16, #12; received 9/18/16 at #11

finished 9/23/16

I actually finished two Richelle Mead books in about a week lol. I was actually a little uncertain about it, because Vampire Academy is such a veteran to the YA genre (meaning it's that pre-2012 group I still haven't blogged about), and because Soundless didn't have as strong reviews as I was hoping for since the concept sounded so unique.

And the concept definitely was refreshing in being so new. It definitely kept me on my toes, and the progression of the story took different directions than I was expecting from it. (Which is good!)

... but I do have to agree with a lot of people on Goodreads that it wasn't dynamic (read: kind of boring) and that I did a lot of the mental picture-building myself. I was never as interested in the book as I wanted to be and I had to purposefully sit down and decide to read Soundless as opposed to the other ebooks I had checked out. (I got through Vampire Academy, Dearest, and The House of the Stone since I started Soundless.)

There also wasn't any cultural worldbuilding to it. They had Chinese-sounding names, and apparently all looked Asian, and wrote with characters. That's really all I got from it. Maybe there's something to be said about their social dynamics that makes them different from a Western society, but I think that was superficial and stereotypical. This wasn't really something I noticed while I was reading but it definitely stands out now that people on Goodreads have brought it up.

I also don't really agree with Fei miraculously getting her hearing back. I was a little apprehensive about that even before starting the book, and while it was explained better than I was expecting, I was also hoping that she would be the only exception. I don't think it's a good narrative to have deafness be something that can be magically cured.

I think some of the problem with Soundless was that the whole plot was shoved into the course of a single book, which made everything happen too quickly to feel realistic, and didn't give any time for worldbuilding. (Well, we actually did have some good chances for it, and we didn't get it.) I think it could've been more interesting if it didn't feel artificially rushed.

TL;DR it was pretty dull, but I don't feel right rating it just one star. I think the fact that I never felt like throttling any of the characters (or other aspects of the book) earns it that second star.

CWs: violence, death, injuries. These aren't terrible but the book is a little violent towards the end.