Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance

Publishing Info: October 2011 by Simon and Schuster

Pages: 438

Star Rating: 2/5

Back Cover Summary:

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 is the third book in the Hush, Hush series and was, unfortunately, a disappointment. I loved the first two books in the series (Hush, Hush and Crescendo) but Silence was a complete let down. This will be a short review, since, well, nothing much happened.

I don’t want to spoil anything so won’t say too much, but basically Nora loses her memory of the last several months and is trying to find out who kidnapped her and remember everything that happened. This is incredibly frustrating because as the reader you already know what happened to her. It wasn’t too bad for me as it had been several months since I read the second book so couldn’t remember everything anyway. But if you read it straight after it would be so frustrating and boring. The memory loss isn’t even a vital part of the plot! It seems like Fitzpatrick just flung it in for the fun of it. To be honest, the majority of the book could have been scrapped and the small amount that was necessary put on the beginning of book four.

What I liked most about the first two books was the mystery. It wasn’t just a paranormal/romance, it actually had a large element of the mystery genre which kept me intrigued. There wasn’t any of that in Silence (unless you count the pointless memory loss plot device which backfired). Barely anything actually happened in the book. There was a little bit of excitement and intrigue in the last two chapters but other than that it was pretty eventless (bar maybe two other scene – no spoilers).

Furthermore, Nora was at her worst in this book. She spent most of her time being a whiny damsel in distress. There is one thing that has dismayed me throughout the series, and that is why on Earth Nora fell in love with Patch. He is incredibly devoid of personality and a bit creepy. He doesn’t improve in the third book at all.

I don’t have much else to say other than that I don’t want to put you off the first two books, as they were very good. I hope this is just a blip and that the fourth (and last) book will be an improvement.