Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick
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Series: Hush, Hush (#3)
Pages: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: October 4th, 2011
IBSN: 9780857072283
The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They've overcome the secrets riddled in Patch's dark past...bridged two irreconcilable worlds...faced heart-wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty and trust...and all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth. Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in one another, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they've worked for—and their love—forever.
Silence's blurb's beginning gave me the impression that now that Nora and Patch troubles are over they're having relationship issues, which make me snicker. "The noise between Patch and Nora is gone." Like noise being akin to the 'spark'. With the cover snicker-worthy itself, it took me a while to muster up the courage to begin this.
And then I finished it a couple of hours afterwards.
Silence felt like a large improvement on earlier books Hush, Hush and Crescendo, neither of which I'm a fan of, with the faster plot driving me from the story without stopping to pay much mind to qualms I had with the writing. I definitely found Silence to be an entertaining read, on the surface, and I tried to stay on that level and just continue to enjoy it.
That didn't always work, however. Post-reading all of the issues that I didn't spend time dwelling on while speedily flipping pages began to bother me. My major problem thus far with the series has been protagonist Nora Grey, and despite whatever kinship I may have felt with her at the beginning (given we were both thoroughly confused about her situation), I eventually got into the routine of repeatedly asking her why she thought doing that was a good idea.
In three books, I don't think she's developed at all from the naively dumb girl who followed Patch to a sketchy bar at night for a school assignment way back in the beginning. She's still takes good intentions to the extreme (a gas station is being held up by people with superhuman strength, and you want to stay to testify to the police who aren't even on their way yet?), and she's still clingy and possessive.
Nora's poor characterisation made for an unconvincing romance, following the trend of supernatural love interests portrayed as the protagonists' image of perfection falling for them inexplicably.
So the characters and their dynamics remained exasperating, but aside from that, I was beginning to see improvements in Becca Fitzpatrick's overall style, especially in the pacing. Her writing style even seemed to be striking a tentative balance between distraction and descriptive. But the ending, unexpected and almost contrived in an effort to continue the story, put me off pursuing future books in this series just when doing so started to seem like a good idea.
Silence should appeal to -- and even perhaps, impress -- established fans, and convert readers on the fence, but while many aspects of Silence improve from Hush, Hush and Crescendo, especially action-wise, other factors held it back.
I give Silence a 2 out of 5.
