Radio Silence

The platonic relationships in this book literally make me melt with happiness. My library absolutely lied to the public by putting a romance label on the spine because romance makes no appearance whatsoever in this book and I absolutely couldn't be happier about it. The fact that a platonic relationship can be the most powerful, life-changing one you have is just so refreshing and comforting to me and I couldn't be happier to see it.

Frances and Aled both feel like they can be honest about their interests in geeky, off-the-wall stuff for the first time with each other and really enjoy the time they spend hanging out, watching tv, working on Aled's podcasts, and just doing nothing in particular. Frances has always felt like she had to be show more School Frances, the nerdy girl who's top of her class and spends every spare moment on homework and getting into Cambridge because she's good at school and she shouldn't waste that right? Aled has always been pressured by his mother to excel at school and get a proper university degree because that's the only path worth following. Their friendship allows them to start to work past the anxiety and stress and pressure that's heaped on them - by themselves, by family, by school, by everything around them - and figure out what actually makes them happy and where they actually want to be in life.

This book dealt a lot with the pressure to get good grades and go to university and follow a certain path in life, which any student can tell you is relentless and occasionally crippling. The thing that I really appreciated that this book did is that it looked at this pressure from multiple angles. You have Frances, who decided at 9 that she's going to Cambridge because she's good at school so she should take advantage of that and has worked relentlessly to get there, even if it means sleepless nights and panicked reviewing. Frances's mother would have been far less worried about her daughter if she had put less focus on her schoolwork and relaxed more. Then there's Aled whose mother pushed him onto the university track because that's the only life she thinks is worth living and she was ready to totally disown her daughter who didn't fit into that mold. But there's also Daniel, whose parents want him to just work at their store because that's more sensible but he truly loves studying biology and it's something he wants to be able to pursue but if he can't get the absolute best grades he won't manage because he doesn't really have parental support. And then there's characters like Carys and Raine who just are not academically inclined but feel pressured by parents or school or whatever to fit themselves into that mold and make themselves miserable in the process, even though there are other just as good options available to them. Just the fact that none of these students are feeling school anxiety in the same way, but they're all feeling it because that's basically how our educational system is now set up was addressed so well and felt so true.

This book was also hella queer and I loved it. Frances is bi and based on some comments she makes at various points I also read her as ace-spec. Aled is gay and demisexual and a lot of the anxiety he has to work through during the book can be traced back to him being unsure about being demi and what that would mean for his relationship. I was really happy to see his boyfriend be accepting of his identity even if he was angry about how Aled handled the situation by just running away and ceasing communication.

Basically, go pick up this book it's amazing and you won't regret it. show less

I really liked this book, more than I thought I would.

To be honest, I read up page 80 and then dropped it for something else because it wasn't doing much for me. I picked it back up again as a break from the series I'm reading, and finished the rest in a single day.

It is not everyone's taste, but I adore books with more... Unusual writing, were the plot jumps around a little and isn't completely chronologically or focused on point A to point B. I also love books that leave some things up to reader interpretation or for the reader to figure out, rather than telling everything. This book has both, without being so much that I feel like the pacing or plot suffers.

The characters are refreshing, in a very accurate teenagers are cringe way, show more and I found myself relating to Francis more and more. I would say the actual plot is a little bit of a let down and felt rushed at the end; it just didn't mesh with the rest of the book? But I still enjoyed it, and I'm glad it relied on platonic friendship and family rather than romance.

Overall, the book is not perfect, but the characters are fresh, their relationships are cute and inviting, and the plot has intrigue, depth, and suspense without needing action. show less

Frances is Head Girl at her school, has the highest grades of her class, and is determined to get into Oxbridge and become successful. At least, that's who she is on the outside. But on the inside she feels much less dull, and much less the nerdy/shy girl. And on the inside she's obsessed with a youtube show called Universe City, whose creator is a complete mystery to the entire fandom. When she finds out that the creator is actually Aled, the quiet, studious best friend of her frenemy/the Head Boy, they become close friends and start collaborating on the show together. But they both have secrets that they keep not only from the fans but from themselves, and when those secrets come out, their friendship - and Aled's mental health - is show more at stake.

This clinches it: Alice Oseman is one of my new very favorite authors. This novel was brilliant in so many ways. It's darker than Heartstopper but the characters still make you want to hug them all and be a part of their lives. It also shows gender and sexuality on a broad spectrum and all in a fabulously positive light. It's about friendship and trust and the importance of mental health. Opening one of Oseman's books feels like entering a safe space, and I love her for that. show less

I read Alice Oseman's Solitaire almost 5 years ago. I liked it at the time but I wouldn't say that I was a fan. I decided to read Radio Silence after hearing Kat (Paperbackdreams on YouTube) talk about it in her videos.
I have to admit that I loved the book. I love how realistic the author has made it. It explores a lot of important issues and not in a way that makes it look like it's trying hard to do so. The main character is Frances. She is a little bit like all of us. She is someone who did not make me want to punch myself on the face multiple times. Moreover, someone who did not take up the whole narrative, which is something, I feel, a lot of young adult books are lacking when it comes to protagonists.
The book is based on the show more problems of the educational system. The pressure and the competition that students battle everyday through exams, authority figures as well as family. This was something that I could relate to, a lot. The author made sure that it was not exaggerated. A lot of us have studied something for years thinking it's what we want, only to realize later on that we couldn't even figure ourselves out as individuals or know what we really need in the first place because we were too busy with the rat-race.
I loved the relationships in the book. It has beautifully captured the platonic relationship and doesn't spend much time rambling over whether or not the two main(relatively) characters in the book (don't worry,not a spoiler) will end up together. The relationship that Frances has with her mother is also something that I adored.
What made the book different from anything I have read recently in this genre is the fact that everything the characters in the book did had very realistic consequences, which is something I appreciate a lot. Whenever someone reads a book and start loving it, I feel like, we get attached to a characters or start admiring them and it's always the best to make them flawed. It makes us feel like it's okay not to have it together all the time and that things can always turn out to be better if we keep working hard. Thank you, Alice Oseman, for putting a good book out there for us to read.
Overall, the book is amazing. I urge you to read it. It doesn't make you wanna saliva vomit or choke yourself to death when you read it. It makes you wanna smile and read more.

P.S.
I didn't share much of the plot here because I don't wanna take anything away from your reading experience. I believe that reviews are takeaways that they have or personal comments on how someone feels after reading a book. Anyone can find the blurb or the plot online and some people like diving right into it without knowing a thing. show less

When I started this book, I was not expecting so much nuance and complexity. I am all for nuance and complexity though, so yay! And I got more of that than I expected even then! Between Frances’ identity stuff, Aled’s living situation, the academic university burnout stuff, the realistic portrayal of friendship and anxiety and trying to do the right thing, the fandom, and the LGBT+ bits that are also threaded through this, there’s more than enough to go around. Any one of those story lines would be enough to carry a novel on its own, even. The fact that Oseman gets all that in the same book…

Anyway, I also really liked that this doesn’t quite read like any other YA or adult novel I’ve run into. There’s something about the show more structure or cadence or Frances’s voice in general that sets it apart and makes it shine. (It did take me a bit to get used to it, though.) I was never utterly swept up by the story but the subtextual stuff stuck with me. I think if I’d read this book as a teen, it would have resonated really strongly. As an adult, I see a lot of myself in Frances, and also in Aled.

Yesterday I said for everyone to go out and buy The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue so that Mackenzi Lee would write more. Today, you need to do the same with Radio Silence, for the same reasons and also because I want to see more YA (and adult fiction) that’s like this—diverse, topical, nuanced, interestingly written, not following the same old plots. It’s totally deserving of all the buzz it’s been getting.

Warnings: Abuse. Depression. Anxiety. Tumblr hate.

8/10 show less

ASEXUAL REPRESENTATION. I AM CRYING TEARS. OH MY GOODNESS. AHH. YES. ACE. REP. ACE. REP. GOOD ACE REP. ACTUAL ACE REP. REALISTIC ACE REP. BELIEVABLE ACE REP. EXPLANATORY ACE REP. COULD THIS BE MORE BEAUTIFUL? COULD THIS BE MORE LOVELY?! ASEXUALITY AND DEMISEXUALITY EXPLAINED IN A QUICK AND NORMAL FASHION!!!!

Okay I will now stop breaking the CapsLock key. Hello, someone is most definitely listening.

But actually, I think one of the strongest aspects of this book is about university (universe city) and how it's for some people but it's not for all people, and really, I think we need a lot more books like this because today's culture in the US and increasingly in New Zealand (can't speak for the UK, haven't lived there) is so very geared show more towards going to uni and how that's the only important thing and the only way to have happiness. That's not true, and this book demonstrates that quite aptly, and portrays so well that smart people can go a variety of paths.

I loved the portrayal of the parents--we get to see an incredible relationship with Frances and her mum, and a less incredible relationship elsewhere. I loved the mystery of February. I loved all of the friendships (Raine! Daniel!) and all of the relationships within the group. I loved the feeling of adventure. I didn't love the podcast a lot, but I loved what it did with the story.

And mostly, I loved that one page very close to the end that told the world what asexuality is. Ungh! But I was already super enamoured with that book before that page, too, so don't think I liked this just because of the rep. But I legit think that this is the first book I've read with good asexual rep named. (I won't get started on how Mia from the Princess Diaries is demi...here.)

And this had a lovely ending, too. And the diversity is subtle but epic (especially when Frances talks about wanting to feel more connected to her culture.) And the texts feel so real (uh hello I can tell when people are faking it.) And I loved that this actually felt British through their speech habits (I probably read the whole thing to myself in a kiwi accent because of certain words and that feels real.) Also the fact that there isn't a romance between the main characters like you'd expect, and also that they TELL US THIS (in the copy as well, I later learned, having not read the copy before I read the book) WHICH IS SO BRILLIANT.

I'm so very happy! show less

Oseman does a great job of writing believable but flawed young adults, and the stress associated with the transition from high school to 'the rest of your life', with or without parental pressure. I greatly appreciated that while there is a parent whose parenting style made me go argh, it was not the the viewpoint character's (Frances) parent -- we got to see a slightly odd but working parent/child relationship from the inside, as Frances and their parent interact throughout the story.

The framing narrative of the storytelling podcast, along with the far too believable online fan interaction gives a much needed break at times. Because there are some very stressful moments in the story, not least related to exam stress, exam results, show more university entrance and acceptances.

Although there is a romantic relationship that is core to the story, this is not a romance, but a story of multiple friendships. Of growing up and changing and working out what is important. show less