Silent No More

Trigger Warning: this book contains every single trigger known to man. 

I hated this book. And I loved this book. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it, and in my opinion, it’s nearly impossible to review. But I’ll give it my best shot. 

The setting is a small town, with a group of people looking for Father. Now, these individuals are very strange. And Father is a sort of god-like person who has total control over these 12 individuals. The main character, Carolyn, is clearly trying to mimic the normal American life, but is failing. She dresses strange, uses strange terms when she speaks, and ropes another character, Steve, into an outrageous plan that involves paying him to steal something for her. 

This sets these two off on a wild ride. It’s a total mindfuck, pardon my language. It jumps between timelines, with the 12 people both as adults and as children. It becomes clear that Father is some sort of sociopathic god, stealing these children and giving them each a catalog, which is total mastery over one particular topic. Carolyn’s, for example, is language. She learns every single language in the world, including that of animals and storms. Another child is given the catalog of war, another of death, and so on. And these children are tortured and often killed then resurrected when they fail or try to learn another child’s catalog. It’s absolutely insane. 

The writing style is carefree, so when something incredibly dark happens (a child is raped, for example), the author glosses over it like it’s just another part of the story. I would read something horrifying, and it would be several sentences before I would stop and be like, “Wait, what did I just read?”

Steve is normal, so to speak, so when a series of strange and unbelievable things started happening, his response was similar to what the reader would feel. It’s utter madness, and he’s spun into a story so ridiculous and dark as to be nearly incomprehensible, in the literal sense of the word. 

When I finished this book, I had no idea what to think. It took me two weeks to even write this review. But as I’ve digested this story, the cleverness and genius of the story took hold. I remember telling my friend, “I can’t believe a publishing house saw this from a debut author and were like ‘Yeah, let’s publish this from an unknown writer’.” It’s crazy, it’s insane, it’s total fuckery, and I hated it. It’s very, very, very dark. Yet it’s genius, which is why I love it. 

I know this review probably isn’t helpful in giving anyone a good idea of what to expect, because quite frankly, I don’t think that’s possible. However, I think there are two possibilities about what the author was trying to convey. Either he was trying to convey the insanity of believing that a good God exists and he’s a total asshole, or he was trying to convey a good God absolutely HAS to exist, otherwise our world would be utter chaos. The theme of nihilism is impossible to miss. Or perhaps he’s leaving it up to the reader to decide. 

Personally, it left me grateful that I do believe a good God exists. Because the author is right. If God exists and he isn’t good, he’s a sociopath.