Radio Silence captures a particular atmosphere that I hadn’t previously experienced in YA. Our friendships were definitely more important than our romantic relationships at that time. My friends and I didn’t date much we weren’t searching for our one true loves. The lack of romance also mirrors my high school experience.
I would love to see more strong friendships, like Frances and Aled’s, in YA. It has taken many of years of us being ‘just’ friends for people to start accepting that there aren’t any romantic feelings between us. The other aspect of the book that I deeply related to was the lack of romance and the friendship between Frances and Aled. It was a frustrating time, and one I’ve not really seen depicted in YA before (admittedly, my YA scope is very small). I changed, and my friends’ understanding of me took a lot longer to catch up. They don’t believe that person (the real Frances) could exist. I felt that hard in my last years of high school/first years of uni.
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She doesn’t know how to show them what she’s really like. They have one impression of her (boring and studious).
(That’s one thing that can be particularly different for adult writers to get right, I’ve found).Īpart from accurately representing what it’s like to grow up in the 2010s, Radio Silence cut close to home for me in a couple other ways. Frances’ friends at school don’t really know her. I’ve never read text message conversations that felt so real, like they were lifted straight out of a friend’s phone. There’s no sense of “Haha, I’m so awkward” that sometimes happens when authors try to recreate teen life. Frances narrates with blunt and dry humour. This includes small things (such as certain mannerisms) and bigger things (such as engagement in online communities). I found the experiences described in Radio Silence to be spot on as to my coming of age years. She lived her teen and uni years just as I lived them. (That’s my baby sister’s age?!) Oseman’s age goes a long way to explaining how Oseman wrote such a realistic novel. Upon first seeing the author photo of Alice Oseman, I thought she looked really young. Representing the Today’s High School Experience The following review is broken into four sections: representing the modern high school experience, atmosphere, racial and sexual diversity, and attending university. It’s a rare YA novel that I can objectively appreciate and also personally connect with. I have a lot of thoughts on this book. I imagine it’ll be one of my favourite reads of the year. GoodReads | Indigo | IndieBound | Wordery