This Splintered Silence Book Review
As a sci-fi lover, I basically jumped at the chance to read this book but it’s taken me forever to actually review it. A huge thanks to HarperTeen/HarperCollins Aus for kindly sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review. I honestly wish more YA sci-fi’s were published.
Goodreads Blurb:
Lindley Hamilton has been the leader of the space station Lusca since every first-generation crew member on board, including her mother, the commander, were killed by a deadly virus.
Lindley always assumed she’d captain the Lusca one day, but she never thought that day would come so soon. And she never thought it would be like this—struggling to survive every day, learning how to keep the Lusca running, figuring out how to communicate with Earth, making sure they don’t run out of food.
When a member of the surviving second generation dies from symptoms that look just like the deadly virus, though, Lindley feels her world shrinking even smaller. The disease was supposed to be over; the second generation was supposed to be immune. But as more people die, Lindley must face the terrifying reality that either the virus has mutated or something worse is happening: one of their own is a killer.
Rating: ★★★☆☆(3/5)
Ever since I read After The Lights Go Out by Lili Wilkinson (amazing book, see review here), I’ve had a slight penchant for disaster scenarios and This Splintered Silence was basically a disaster virus movie set in space but in a book and no adults and it was really enjoyable. The concept was scary and pretty realistic since it’d be pretty easy for people to catch a virus when you’re stuck together in space with nowhere else to go.
Our protagonist Lindley gets all the burden as the chosen leader and daughter of the previous captain. I thought Lindley was such a strong and fierce character. The amount of courage and determination she showed throughout the book was amazing because honestly, the events that occur in this book were definitely stressing me out, imagine if I was actually in those situations?
I really enjoyed reading about her friendships and her small inner circle who were all trying to work as a team to remedy the impending doom, although it felt a little 2D. I would’ve loved to read more of each person’s back story and actually care about them a bit more. I also felt like the romance was quite annoying and unnecessary. I would’ve much preferred reading more about her relationships with all the crew members rather than have certain parts fixate on this teen romance. Let’s be honest, when people – a lot of people – are potentially dying soon, it’s not the greatest time to be declaring love or getting turned on. Why don’t you just wait until we’re all safe huh? Or at least stop stressing about it all the time.
The mystery/thriller part of the book was definitely well written. I couldn’t guess or predict what would happen and I really like that in a book – not being able to foresee the plot is a huge writing skill and Kayla Olson did a great job. In general, her writing flowed nicely and was pretty easy to read but I do think this book could’ve been longer, more fleshed out and mature since it was a book you could read pretty fast. I was quite sucked into the story despite my dislikes and would honestly recommend it to any sci-fi space lovers too. It definitely gave me Illuminae vibes every now and then and I love that feeling. This is the first novel I’ve read by Kayla Olson and I quite enjoyed it, so I’ll definitely be looking out for more new releases from her.
Have you read anything by Kayla Olson before? What did you think?
Until next time,
