Louder Than Words by Laurie Plissner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
So the book starts with our protagonist reliving(sort of), in her sleep, the accident that decimated her entire family and lost her the use of her voice. I had no particular reason to, but I felt like this book was going to be a mish-mash of If I Stay, Where She Went and Forgotten. And it was, to a certain extent.
Now, Sasha employs an electronic “voice-box” to do the talking for her. For this, she becomes the victim of much ridicule at her school. But I felt like that was partially her fault. She herself never came to grips with that fact, but she expects other teenagers(who are obviously immature, Yours Truly excluded). Even though it’s been years since the accident and Sasha insists on telling everyone that she’s giving up, it doesn’t seem like she even tried to recover the use of her voice in the first place. Reason? She insists on using the default monotonous(Stephen Hawking wannabe much?), robot-voice instead of the various, more explicit and expressive options available to her, which would probably make it easier for others to accept her. But that’s her decision and she clearly doesn’t want to be part of the mainstream, so I respect her for it and also, I understood her incentives somewhat.
Act One, Scene One: Sasha walks out of the library. Enter four goons from High School who try to rape her. Enter hunk, sweeping in and saving her virtue with his killer ninja skills and Nun-Chuck.
A bit too fairy-tale-like and not up my alley. Not that I’m saying I’ve anything against fairytale.
Act One, Scene Two: Hunk tells her “I can read minds, as one does.” Sasha gets doe-eyed, with not the appropriate response to the trauma she experienced. Worries about him knowing her deep, dark secrets.
It takes people months of therapy to deal with almost getting raped by people they know. Rather, almost getting raped, period. Whereas Sasha only feels a slight headache and nausea and later on, after a good scrubbing, the chapter is all over.
Of course, why didn’t she know that? And obviously, she accepts it without batting an eyelid. But perhaps, she’s read too many books
and is very familiar with the idea of mind-reading. I am; I probably would have had that same response.
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Geez, that’s tiresome- rehashing everything that happened in Acts and Scenes. I’m gonna stop or it’ll get very spoiler-y.
I did NOT care for Sasha at least for the first part, where she only worries “why isn’t he responding to my signal when he can read my mind? why?” However, in the next portion (view spoiler) she develops so much as a character and is way more likable.
The premise of the book is interesting and the author’s writing flows smoothly. And I would like to check out her next book. Also, there is too much sexual content but it’s dealt with realistically, I suppose.
Her friend, Jules, is pleasant enough. But both Ben Fisher and Jules didn’t feel that real; they had no real qualms with her and felt like they were just along for the ride.
The last bit that aggravated me was when she says:
ISN’T IT LOGICAL? WHAT GUY WOULD WANT ME IF HE HAD TO LISTEN TO THIS ROBOT-VOICE ALL DAY?
And Ben, or Jules, doesn’t contradict her. Do they accept that? So now all the mute persons have to look for a mind-reader for themselves to be happy. And that robot-voice missy, is your own damn stubbornness. Also, I would have loved if we didn’t receive such closure at the end and that last thread(regarding her larynx) shouldn’t have been tied so neatly.
All that said, I enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining read to pass these unbelievably cold and foggy days, snuggled in a HP comforter and sipping chocolate, trying not to count the days until the next installments of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Unspoken come out. Oh why didn’t I think of that for myself?
Many, many thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC.
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