Silence Is Goldfish by Annabel Pitcher
Oct. 12th, 2016 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
My name is Tess Turner – at least, that’s what I’ve always been told.
I have a voice but it isn’t mine. It used to say things so I’d fit in, to please my parents, to please my teachers. It used to tell the universe I was something I wasn’t. It lied.
It never occurred to me that everyone else was lying too. But the words that really hurt weren’t the lies: it was six hundred and seventeen words of truth that turned my world upside down.
Words scare me, the lies and the truth, so I decided to stop using them.
I am Pluto. Silent. Inaccessible. Billions of miles away from everything I thought I knew.
617 words have destroyed 15-year-old Tess Turner’s life. An overweight misfit who’s bullied at school by the beautiful and popular Anna, her only friend is uber-geek Isabel who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. The problem is that Tess does care: she knows that her micro-managing dad would judge Isabel and find her wanting. Her dad (a professional actor who’s struggling for work) always nags her to do her homework and aim high. So when Tess stumbles on a blog that her dad is writing, where he confesses that he’s not her biological father and never felt any love for her when she was born, she strikes back in the only way she knows how: by refusing to speak to anyone and by deciding to look for her biological father.
But Tess’s silence creates misunderstandings with her parents and Isabel and leaves her open to worse bullying from Anna. Her only confidant is a child’s toy torch shaped like a goldfish who tells her things she doesn’t want to hear while the only chink of light comes with the arrival of Mr Richardson, a temporary maths teacher, who shares Tess’s interests and even looks a little bit like her …
Annabel Pitcher’s third YA novel is an emotionally charged contemporary tale covering pushy parents, bullying and personal identity and although some elements didn’t work for me (the talking torch needlessly infantilised Tess, some of self-destructive behaviour and wilful blindness seemed contrived and I wish that she’d confronted her father’s poor behaviour), the bullying scenes and Tess’s hurt and despair made this a stirring and powerful read. I completely believed in Tess’s reaction to discovering that her dad is not her biological father, her decision to remain silent and some of her self-destructive impulses (notably her desire to be Anna’s friend). However, I didn’t buy her behaviour with Isabel (which seemed to exist solely to leave Tess isolated) or the budding romance with Henry (who is too idealised) and her role as a pawn in a teacher romance seemed contrived and a little crude (especially her refusal to acknowledge the same). That said the bullying scenes really resonated with me as did her reaction to the same (although I don’t see why she needed to be overweight) and ultimately, the skill of Pitcher’s writing carried me through to the end and really resonated with me.
The Verdict:
Annabel Pitcher’s third YA novel is an emotionally charged contemporary tale covering pushy parents, bullying and personal identity and although some elements didn’t work for me (the talking torch needlessly infantilised Tess, some of self-destructive behaviour and wilful blindness seemed contrived and I wish that she’d confronted her father’s poor behaviour), the bullying scenes and Tess’s hurt and despair made this a stirring and powerful read. I completely believed in Tess’s reaction to discovering that her dad is not her biological father, her decision to remain silent and some of her self-destructive impulses (notably her desire to be Anna’s friend). However, I didn’t buy her behaviour with Isabel (which seemed to exist solely to leave Tess isolated) or the budding romance with Henry (who is too idealised) and her role as a pawn in a teacher romance seemed contrived and a little crude (especially her refusal to acknowledge the same). That said the bullying scenes really resonated with me as did her reaction to the same (although I don’t see why she needed to be overweight) and ultimately, the skill of Pitcher’s writing carried me through to the end and really resonated with me.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
My name is Tess Turner – at least, that’s what I’ve always been told.
I have a voice but it isn’t mine. It used to say things so I’d fit in, to please my parents, to please my teachers. It used to tell the universe I was something I wasn’t. It lied.
It never occurred to me that everyone else was lying too. But the words that really hurt weren’t the lies: it was six hundred and seventeen words of truth that turned my world upside down.
Words scare me, the lies and the truth, so I decided to stop using them.
I am Pluto. Silent. Inaccessible. Billions of miles away from everything I thought I knew.
617 words have destroyed 15-year-old Tess Turner’s life. An overweight misfit who’s bullied at school by the beautiful and popular Anna, her only friend is uber-geek Isabel who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. The problem is that Tess does care: she knows that her micro-managing dad would judge Isabel and find her wanting. Her dad (a professional actor who’s struggling for work) always nags her to do her homework and aim high. So when Tess stumbles on a blog that her dad is writing, where he confesses that he’s not her biological father and never felt any love for her when she was born, she strikes back in the only way she knows how: by refusing to speak to anyone and by deciding to look for her biological father.
But Tess’s silence creates misunderstandings with her parents and Isabel and leaves her open to worse bullying from Anna. Her only confidant is a child’s toy torch shaped like a goldfish who tells her things she doesn’t want to hear while the only chink of light comes with the arrival of Mr Richardson, a temporary maths teacher, who shares Tess’s interests and even looks a little bit like her …
Annabel Pitcher’s third YA novel is an emotionally charged contemporary tale covering pushy parents, bullying and personal identity and although some elements didn’t work for me (the talking torch needlessly infantilised Tess, some of self-destructive behaviour and wilful blindness seemed contrived and I wish that she’d confronted her father’s poor behaviour), the bullying scenes and Tess’s hurt and despair made this a stirring and powerful read. I completely believed in Tess’s reaction to discovering that her dad is not her biological father, her decision to remain silent and some of her self-destructive impulses (notably her desire to be Anna’s friend). However, I didn’t buy her behaviour with Isabel (which seemed to exist solely to leave Tess isolated) or the budding romance with Henry (who is too idealised) and her role as a pawn in a teacher romance seemed contrived and a little crude (especially her refusal to acknowledge the same). That said the bullying scenes really resonated with me as did her reaction to the same (although I don’t see why she needed to be overweight) and ultimately, the skill of Pitcher’s writing carried me through to the end and really resonated with me.
The Verdict:
Annabel Pitcher’s third YA novel is an emotionally charged contemporary tale covering pushy parents, bullying and personal identity and although some elements didn’t work for me (the talking torch needlessly infantilised Tess, some of self-destructive behaviour and wilful blindness seemed contrived and I wish that she’d confronted her father’s poor behaviour), the bullying scenes and Tess’s hurt and despair made this a stirring and powerful read. I completely believed in Tess’s reaction to discovering that her dad is not her biological father, her decision to remain silent and some of her self-destructive impulses (notably her desire to be Anna’s friend). However, I didn’t buy her behaviour with Isabel (which seemed to exist solely to leave Tess isolated) or the budding romance with Henry (who is too idealised) and her role as a pawn in a teacher romance seemed contrived and a little crude (especially her refusal to acknowledge the same). That said the bullying scenes really resonated with me as did her reaction to the same (although I don’t see why she needed to be overweight) and ultimately, the skill of Pitcher’s writing carried me through to the end and really resonated with me.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
