By now, you’re probably well aware of Nora’s story, from the Hush Hush saga, so I won’t reiterate too much in terms of background information on Nora and Patch.
In the beginning of Silence, Nora wakes up alone in a cemetery, apparently abandoned, and has no recollection of how she got there or who brought her there. Not only that, but she’s been missing for 11 weeks. Nora can’t remember the past 11 weeks, nor months before that has well.
Patch is seemingly gone from her life, and Nora can’t remember him as she tries to put the pieces of her life back together. Her friends and family don’t always tell her the truth, so its up to Nora to figure what happened to her, and who this mysterious, but mesmerizing, stranger who she keeps seeing everywhere.
Since its been quite some time since I read Crescendo, which was the second book in the saga, I was stumbling along in the first few chapters, trying to remember what exactly had happened. Luckily, there were ample flashbacks and dreams to remind Nora, which helped in reminding me too.
Fitzpatrick definitely has a talent for the spooky, and a talent for keeping the reader interested. Despite how tired I was when I started this book one night, I kept flipping through quickly, trying to figure out what the grand plan was and how Nora would fix things.
With that being said, the mystery of the book wasn’t really executed well, or at least as well as Hush Hush. A lot of the story is laid out for you in the first few chapters, giving you the reasoning and motivations of several baddies, and of course for Patch. With that said, I wasn’t really too worried that Patch didn’t love Nora or that he had betrayed her by leaving her. I already knew he was ‘protecting’ her by abandoning her (ahem, New Moon reference) and thus I wasn’t too anxious for his return, since I knew it was eventually going to happen. Thus there was no suspense in that.
One character that did keep me interested was Scott Parnell, a childhood friend of Nora’s, who also happens to be Nephilim. Patch insinuates that he has some darker purpose, which I was kind of excited to read about, but this didn’t ever come to fruition.
Nora is similarly informed by a former acquaintance, Dabria, that Patch’s intentions aren’t the most pure, once he comes back into Nora’s life. Again, the aura of suspicion is aroused, but it too doesn’t come too fruition.
My biggest problem with this book was the lack of any stakes. Everything felt rather lukewarm. There wasn’t any sense of urgency or anxiety in Nora and Patch’s love, or whether their relationship was actually at risk.
Another pet peeve of mine was Nora. I know people have poked fun at her for her stupidity, and it definitely makes an appearance in this book too. Mere hours after Nora returns home from the hospital, after she has been missing for 11 weeks, she sneaks out to go to the cemetery, to try and dig for clues. I mean, how stupid can you get? There are many other instances like this, which had me shaking my head at Nora’s naivety.
Overall, the story was an okay one, nothing too engaging. But Fitzpatrick’s prose somehow still kept me reading, with lukewarm interest.
So for that: 2.5/5
Thanks for reading.
‘Till next time,
Ikhlas