Soundless

Title: Soundless

Author: Richelle Mead

Rating: 3.5 stars

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Number of Pages: 266

Publication Date: 2015

Publisher: Penguin

Summary: For as long as Fei can remember, no one in her village has been able to hear. Rocky terrain and frequent avalanches make it impossible  to the village, so Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom.

When villagers begin to lose their sight, delivers from the zipline shrink. Many go hungry. Fei and all the people she loves are plunged into crisis, with nothing to look forward to but darkness and starvation.

Until one night, Fei is awoken by a searing noise. Sound becomes her weapon.

She sets out to uncover what's happened to her and to fight the dangers threatening her village. A handsome miner with a revolutionary spirit accompanies Fei on her quest, bringing with him new risks and the possibility of romance. They embark on a majestic journey from the peak of their jagged mountain village to the valley of Beiguo, where a startling truth will change their lives.

I read this book in one sitting, it was a quick, easy and light read of a very different and unique story. Three things in particular stood out about this book.

The first thing that I absolutely loved about this book was how Richelle Mead got around the fact that none of the characters could hear anything. We rely so greatly on sound and writing a book that is filled with people who cannot even fathom what sound is, takes some true talent. As you are reading and Fei gets her hearing back you feel as if you too are experiencing what sounds are for the first time. I was also amazed at how Richelle Mead described sounds. It's not easy to describe the sound something makes when we you can't use words associated with sound to describe it but Richelle creates a seamless way around this.

Another thing I loved about this book was the Chinese folk tale aspect. It is this folk tale aspect that brings the fantasy to the book. But if your not a big fantasy fan that's ok because this book isn't fantasy focused. Unfortunately this is one of things I also disliked about the book. I absolutely loved the Chinese folk tale idea and I would loved to have known more about it. Because of how short this book is, much of the story is told in the here and now. This meant that we only got the fantasy aspect at the end of the book when it was actually happening and didn't get much of a prelude or information in the beginning.

My final point about this book is the characters. Like with the fantasy aspect of this story much of the who the characters were was left untold due to happening outside the actual storyline. This I could understand because of how short the story was but I would like to have seen more character development that was directly tied into the plot events. Both Fei and Li Wei are strong characters who are spurred into action because it is called of them but this is who the characters are already. While they learn more about the outside world and lose some of their naive perspectives, this doesn't so much change them as educate them. But then perhaps that is the point, not everyone changes and grows from every event in their lives.