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r0bin_05's review against another edition
1.5
writing of a kids book, but with horrible horrible themes not for kids
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Drug abuse, Incest, and Rape
chrissireads's review against another edition
5.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very moving. The Quietness is incredibly easy to read, I devoured it in almost one sitting. I absolutely loved the two main characters. My full review can be found here
bibliobethreads's review against another edition
4.0
I would give this four and a half stars if I could.The Quietness is a beautifully realised and original piece of work that has a bite of real history behind it. The author introduces us to two sisters that actually existed in Victorian England and were known collectively as the âBrixton Baby Farmers,â who were responsible for the deaths of nineteen infants by starvation. Our main characters, Ellen and Queenie become embroiled in this nasty business when Queenie is employed as a maid for the sisters under false pretences, unaware of what is really going on. Ellen, on the other hand becomes a âfallen womanâ when she becomes pregnant and is sent to the sistersâ house in disgrace by her father, a prominent anatomist to have her bastard child in secret. As a historical novel for young adults, I think it has passion and depth and will definitely succeed in making people more interested about our past, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Please see my full review at http://www.bibliobeth.wordpress.com
Please see my full review at http://www.bibliobeth.wordpress.com
katlinmorris's review against another edition
2.0
I thought I would love this book. Iâve been hyping myself up about âThe Quietnessâ since it was published in 2013 but I never got around to reading it until now. And now that I have actually read it Iâm not only feeling underwhelmed, Iâm feeling sad and angry. Iâm feeling betrayed. âThe Quietnessâ with its gorgeous cover and interesting blurb seemed like a book that I would just have to like. Iâm not quite sure why I was so certain it would be phenomenal but itâs kind of my own fault I was disappointed. Except not really. Let me explain.
OF FRUIT SELLERS AND RICH GIRLS
I liked âThe Quietnessâ well enough at first. Alison Rattle captures Victorian London quite well, from the squalid slums near Waterloo bridge to the lavish mansions of Bloomsbury and everything in between. âThe Quietnessâ is quite a dark book. The atmosphere is gloomy throughout and thatâs where my problems with the book began. Itâs so dark, so hopeless and gloomy, it smothers you. I usually like books with a darker atmosphere but âThe Quietnessâ is just overdoing it. Thereâs no hope at all, nothing good happens to even out all the bad stuff and the more you read, the more you feel somewhat icky, like this book is leaving a stain on you, thatâs how gloomy it is. I felt uncomfortable a lot but not in the good way.
Some books arenât enjoyable at all. Some books make you uncomfortable, they force you to think and immerse yourself in all that darkness and in the end you feel it was worthwhile. âThe Pleasures of Menâ by Kate Williams was such a book for me. So was âWe Were Liarsâ by E. Lockhart, which I loved so much I canât even find the words to review it. âThe Quietnessâ however was just dark and unpleasant to read. It wasnât worthwhile. Just depressing.
Itâs basically the story of two young women: One born into absolute poverty but loved by her family, the other the daughter of rich middle class parents but unloved. When their lives intertwine, they find themselves in extreme danger. I liked the premise well enough. Itâs an interesting concept and I was hoping for some nice insight into Victorian society, the gap between rich and poor and how the two heroines, Queenie and Ellen, would each deal with their position in life. But âThe Quietnessâ never uses any of its potential at all. Itâs shallow as a puddle in your back garden. It never really goes into the workings of Victorian society, its double standards and ideas of ethics, poverty and wealth and thatâs a shame since it tries to deal with some heavy topics.
OF VICTORIAN STEREOTYPES AND REALITIES
Thereâs a rape scene in âThe Quietnessâ. It happens around the 30 percent mark so itâs not really a spoiler. Iâm going to talk about it in detail because I was so bothered by the authorâs attempt at dealing with such a serious topic so if youâre uncomfortable reading about rape please skip the next few paragraphs. What happens is that Ellen gets raped by someone she trusted and when her father finds out he turns on her. He calls her a whore and tries to get rid of her because he thinks her virtue is ruined. He goes as far as to tell her that she canât blame âthe weaknesses of menâ for what happened to her, that itâs basically her own fault.
Iâm bothered by this portrayal of a Victorian reaction to rape because itâs wrong from start to finish. The Victorians did not condone rape. Rape was a serious offence and rapists were prosecuted. In 1870, the year this book is set in, a lowly bar maid sued a middle class man for rape and won the process. What Iâm getting at is that rape was a serious offence in Victorian times and more often than not Victorians did not put the blame on the victims. I know this will probably surprise you if you donât know a lot about Victorian society but thatâs just my point: Alison Rattle should know a lot about Victorian society. She writes historical fiction. She should do her research, especially when writing about a serious topic like rape. But what she does instead is rely on old stereotypes about the Victorian age and that just wonât do. I donât blame any reader for believing this but I do blame authors of historical fiction for being lazy enough to just rely on tropes instead of digging deeper and trying to understand Victorian attitudes to gender, female sexuality and rape. Rattle obviously didnât or she would have handled Ellenâs rape differently.
This is something I noticed time and time again when reading âThe Quietnessâ. In the Victorian age according to Alison Rattle men could do whatever they liked and women could do nothing. Women were always victims, always suffering, always miserable. Thatâs an easy way to write about Victorian sexism but itâs also wrong and quite honestly absolutely lazy. It was hard being a woman in the 1800s but itâs so much more complex than âmen got away with everything and women had no chance at happiness everâ. In fact the âweaknesses of menâ Ellenâs father mentions would not have gotten Ellenâs rapist off lightly. Weakness in a man was understood to be a crime all in itself. A man giving in to these weaknesses and raping a woman was basically considered scum. Men could not do as they pleased and get away with it. Women were not always miserable and had no chance at finding happiness ever.
Why do authors of historical fiction like to see women suffer so much? Why canât we have books about what it was really like being a woman in Victorian England? About all the hardships but also about all the ways a woman could work around it and find happiness still?
I think any historical authorâs biggest task is finding a balance between their research and actual Victorian day to day realities, between what Victorian society mightâve deemed ideal and what Victorians actually behaved like. Like so many others Alison Rattle fails horribly at achieving such a balance. What she does is give us âidealâ Victorians. Cardboard cut outs of what we might think Victorians were like: Prudish, strict, stiff, humourless, repressed, hating women⌠She seems to have forgotten that Victorians were human with human emotions. She doesnât find any balance between these Victorian tropes and ideals and what it meant to be a human being with feelings who was socialised in Victorian times.
She gives us a Victorian middle class father who finds out his daughter was raped and instead of going after the rapist and pressing charges he calls his daughter a whore and blames her. Because thatâs what we think Victorians mightâve done. This might have happened to some girls but it sure as hell wasnât an everyday reality. And when I read historical fiction, I want to read about everyday realities and real Victorians, not these stereotypes Iâve seen a thousand times before, these âideal Victoriansâ based in age old tropes. The Victorian age and its attitudes towards sexuality, gender, bodies and crimes such as rape was much more nuanced and complex than this book wants you to think. And I think itâs a shame the author didnât bother to delve deeper. But âThe Quietnessâ is shallow, made up of tropes and stereotypes. It might look pretty because Rattleâs writing is good and her idea of the 1870s aesthetic is quite good too, but she apparently doesnât understand the complexities of Victorian society at all and so âThe Quietnessâ falls flat.
OF TROPES AND SHALLOW CHARACTERS
But this isnât just true for the history bits unfortunately, itâs also true for the story in itself. If youâve read any historical fiction set in Victorian England before, youâll feel like youâve read âThe Quietnessâ before too at least a dozen times. The novel offers absolutely nothing new to the genre. Everything is a trope, there are zero surprises. I know this sounds like an exaggeration but I mean it: Alison Rattle doesnât stray from post-Victorian fiction tropes one single time. âThe Quietnessâ is basic historical fiction, maybe enjoyable for someone who has never read a book set in 19th century England before but everyone else and especially fans of the genre will feel like theyâve wasted their time.
The story is predictable in every way. You will know what secret Ellenâs parents are keeping from her immediately. You will know what Ellen will discover in the end of the novel right away too. It wasnât fun slugging through 280 pages of Ellen and Queenie being all kinds of clueless and trying to figure out stuff that I already knew. And I didnât know because Iâm Sherlock Holmes and can guess plot twists before they even happen, I knew because Rattle uses the exact same storylines dozens of books have used before without even trying to make them fresh or original. And to add insult to injury she also gives you these hints you canât even ignore. Itâs like sheâs always winking, always nudging you going: âDid you see what I said there? Donât you wanna know what I mean by this?â But youâve already figured it out because her hints arenât hints, sheâs basically giving away her own plot twists.
Iâm pretty sure you can already tell from the blurb whatâs up with the babies at Queenieâs new employerâs house. The thing is, if youâve done some research on Victorian era crime as I have since thatâs basically what I do, youâll know whatâs happening here anyway the moment Queenieâs employer utters her name: Margaret Waters. When it comes to infamous Victorians nothing can surprise me and Iâm pretty sure that name is familiar to you too if youâve been interested in the dark underbelly of Victorian society before. But even if you have no idea who this woman was, youâll figure out what she does way before Queenie does and thatâs not just because âThe Quietnessâ is predictable but also because Rattle tells you. I could have dealt with the tropes and the boring old storylines if there had at least been any tension but no. Alison Rattle wonât have it.
The thing is, tropes are popular for a reason and itâs no crime to use them now and then as long as you use them to build upon, as long as you add some nice twists to them that make your book suspenseful. Rattle just doesnât and thatâs what makes âThe Quietnessâ so bland. That and the characters having no depth whatsoever. Theyâre also bland cardboard cut outs. Ellen is the lonely daughter of rich parents, leading a quiet and uneventful life. She has no aspirations whatsoever, no goals. All we find out about her is that she likes to read but thatâs all. Queenie isnât much better, we also donât ever find out what she enjoys or who she really is but at least she had an aspiration I could understand and relate to: Queenie wants to work her way out of poverty and she does everything in her might to achieve this goal. I liked that and I liked Queenie but in the end she was also not much of a character, we learn nothing about her really.
OF UNFORGIVABLE ENDINGS
What bothered me most however was Ellen. She is the most passive character I ever had the displeasure to read about. She does nothing. She lets everything happen to her, but things never happen because of her. I was waiting for her to bristle, to stand up for herself, to become active and stand her ground against all the people who did her wrong but she never really did. The plans she makes are half-hearted and she never goes through with them. Instead she has everything handed to her, mostly by Queenie. And hereâs where the book turned really ugly. Iâm going to give away the ending and I usually donât do that but I have to so I can explain why this book is getting such a low rating from me. Please only click the spoiler if you have no intentions of reading âThe Quietnessâ or already have read it.
Queenie gets executed. She gets sentenced to death. We could talk about if you should kill off your fifteen year old protagonists in Young Adult fiction like this in general but thatâs not my point. My point is that this young girl sacrifices everything for Ellen in the end and what she gets is death. Ellen on the other hand gets everything: She gets the money, she even gets Queenieâs family for crying out loud. Thereâs an epiloque set eleven years later in which Ellen and Queenieâs brother admire their pretty clothes because look, Queenieâs family is rich now! Basically everyone is getting the only thing that Queenie ever wanted whilst Queenie is dead at fifteen. This ending left me so angry at the author, so sad and uncomfortable. I felt betrayed and somewhat gross. This felt wrong to me. The poor slum girl basically gets thrown under the bus so the rich girl can learn a valuable lesson and be inspired by her death.
Eleven years later Queenie isnât even as much as an afterthought to Ellen and her own damn brother. This girl who spent the whole book trying to be somebody, to achieve something, gets executed for something she didnât even do and is forgotten by even her own family so that Ellen can have a family and finally be loved or whatever. I kid you not, this is the grossest I have ever felt reading an ending and I canât even properly explain why Iâm so uncomfortable with it. I just feel like what Ellen has in the end, it should have been Queenieâs. She should have at least been part of it. But whilst the rich girl gets everything, the poor slum girl isnât even worth any kind of redemption. Queenieâs dead and everyone else gets the only thing she ever wanted. Iâm really, really uncomfortable with this, especially because itâs a YA book.
There are some other weird âmessagesâ in this book I didnât really like. For instance Ellen is considering getting an abortion but then doesnât when her old maid calls her evil and a child murderer for even thinking about it. Yes, thatâs probably an authentic reaction to abortion for an old Victorian woman but this book is for modern day teenagers and this opinion on abortions is never challenged in anyway. Theyâre bad and they make you a child murderer, even though you never gave your consent to carrying a baby in the first place, even though Ellenâs been raped and is traumatised to discover she is pregnant against her will aged fifteen. What kind of message, intentional or not, is that? It doesnât belong in YA fiction at all. Iâm giving Rattle the benefit of the doubt here. Iâm assuming she just wanted to have the maid react like an old woman in 1870 would react to abortion but itâs still skeevy and demonising.
In the end âThe Quietnessâ left a bitter taste in my mouth. Itâs unoriginal and tropey, the author apparently doesnât understand Victorian society at all, itâs predictable, the characters have no depths whatsoever and the authorâs treatment of one character in particular left me deeply uncomfortable and angry. The thing is, the ending mightâve worked, had the book been more nuanced. Had the characters felt more real, had Victorian society and its attitude towards gender, sexuality and bodies been portrayed more authentically, more complex and nuanced. This book could have been an insightful historical drama about poverty, Victorian society and what it meant to be a woman in the 1800s but itâs just not. Itâs shallow and way too black and white, there arenât any nuances at all.
Iâm giving this book 2.5 points. One point for Queenie, who I really liked despite her lack of depth, one point for the pretty writing style and the dark Victorian atmosphere, half a point for the premise that couldâve been so much more with a lot more work and research. I would have given the book a point more because itâs literally basic historical fiction. Itâs readable even though itâs bland, itâs atmospheric and even though you see all the plot twists coming, itâs entertaining enough, if not enjoyable because itâs way too dark and depressing, especially for Young Adult fiction. But I have to knock the rating down because of that ending and all the weird messages. âThe Quietnessâ made me uncomfortable in the very worst way and I still feel icky thinking about it, even though itâs been days since I finished it.
This review can also be found at The Bookabelles book blog!
OF FRUIT SELLERS AND RICH GIRLS
I liked âThe Quietnessâ well enough at first. Alison Rattle captures Victorian London quite well, from the squalid slums near Waterloo bridge to the lavish mansions of Bloomsbury and everything in between. âThe Quietnessâ is quite a dark book. The atmosphere is gloomy throughout and thatâs where my problems with the book began. Itâs so dark, so hopeless and gloomy, it smothers you. I usually like books with a darker atmosphere but âThe Quietnessâ is just overdoing it. Thereâs no hope at all, nothing good happens to even out all the bad stuff and the more you read, the more you feel somewhat icky, like this book is leaving a stain on you, thatâs how gloomy it is. I felt uncomfortable a lot but not in the good way.
Some books arenât enjoyable at all. Some books make you uncomfortable, they force you to think and immerse yourself in all that darkness and in the end you feel it was worthwhile. âThe Pleasures of Menâ by Kate Williams was such a book for me. So was âWe Were Liarsâ by E. Lockhart, which I loved so much I canât even find the words to review it. âThe Quietnessâ however was just dark and unpleasant to read. It wasnât worthwhile. Just depressing.
Itâs basically the story of two young women: One born into absolute poverty but loved by her family, the other the daughter of rich middle class parents but unloved. When their lives intertwine, they find themselves in extreme danger. I liked the premise well enough. Itâs an interesting concept and I was hoping for some nice insight into Victorian society, the gap between rich and poor and how the two heroines, Queenie and Ellen, would each deal with their position in life. But âThe Quietnessâ never uses any of its potential at all. Itâs shallow as a puddle in your back garden. It never really goes into the workings of Victorian society, its double standards and ideas of ethics, poverty and wealth and thatâs a shame since it tries to deal with some heavy topics.
OF VICTORIAN STEREOTYPES AND REALITIES
Thereâs a rape scene in âThe Quietnessâ. It happens around the 30 percent mark so itâs not really a spoiler. Iâm going to talk about it in detail because I was so bothered by the authorâs attempt at dealing with such a serious topic so if youâre uncomfortable reading about rape please skip the next few paragraphs. What happens is that Ellen gets raped by someone she trusted and when her father finds out he turns on her. He calls her a whore and tries to get rid of her because he thinks her virtue is ruined. He goes as far as to tell her that she canât blame âthe weaknesses of menâ for what happened to her, that itâs basically her own fault.
Iâm bothered by this portrayal of a Victorian reaction to rape because itâs wrong from start to finish. The Victorians did not condone rape. Rape was a serious offence and rapists were prosecuted. In 1870, the year this book is set in, a lowly bar maid sued a middle class man for rape and won the process. What Iâm getting at is that rape was a serious offence in Victorian times and more often than not Victorians did not put the blame on the victims. I know this will probably surprise you if you donât know a lot about Victorian society but thatâs just my point: Alison Rattle should know a lot about Victorian society. She writes historical fiction. She should do her research, especially when writing about a serious topic like rape. But what she does instead is rely on old stereotypes about the Victorian age and that just wonât do. I donât blame any reader for believing this but I do blame authors of historical fiction for being lazy enough to just rely on tropes instead of digging deeper and trying to understand Victorian attitudes to gender, female sexuality and rape. Rattle obviously didnât or she would have handled Ellenâs rape differently.
This is something I noticed time and time again when reading âThe Quietnessâ. In the Victorian age according to Alison Rattle men could do whatever they liked and women could do nothing. Women were always victims, always suffering, always miserable. Thatâs an easy way to write about Victorian sexism but itâs also wrong and quite honestly absolutely lazy. It was hard being a woman in the 1800s but itâs so much more complex than âmen got away with everything and women had no chance at happiness everâ. In fact the âweaknesses of menâ Ellenâs father mentions would not have gotten Ellenâs rapist off lightly. Weakness in a man was understood to be a crime all in itself. A man giving in to these weaknesses and raping a woman was basically considered scum. Men could not do as they pleased and get away with it. Women were not always miserable and had no chance at finding happiness ever.
Why do authors of historical fiction like to see women suffer so much? Why canât we have books about what it was really like being a woman in Victorian England? About all the hardships but also about all the ways a woman could work around it and find happiness still?
I think any historical authorâs biggest task is finding a balance between their research and actual Victorian day to day realities, between what Victorian society mightâve deemed ideal and what Victorians actually behaved like. Like so many others Alison Rattle fails horribly at achieving such a balance. What she does is give us âidealâ Victorians. Cardboard cut outs of what we might think Victorians were like: Prudish, strict, stiff, humourless, repressed, hating women⌠She seems to have forgotten that Victorians were human with human emotions. She doesnât find any balance between these Victorian tropes and ideals and what it meant to be a human being with feelings who was socialised in Victorian times.
She gives us a Victorian middle class father who finds out his daughter was raped and instead of going after the rapist and pressing charges he calls his daughter a whore and blames her. Because thatâs what we think Victorians mightâve done. This might have happened to some girls but it sure as hell wasnât an everyday reality. And when I read historical fiction, I want to read about everyday realities and real Victorians, not these stereotypes Iâve seen a thousand times before, these âideal Victoriansâ based in age old tropes. The Victorian age and its attitudes towards sexuality, gender, bodies and crimes such as rape was much more nuanced and complex than this book wants you to think. And I think itâs a shame the author didnât bother to delve deeper. But âThe Quietnessâ is shallow, made up of tropes and stereotypes. It might look pretty because Rattleâs writing is good and her idea of the 1870s aesthetic is quite good too, but she apparently doesnât understand the complexities of Victorian society at all and so âThe Quietnessâ falls flat.
OF TROPES AND SHALLOW CHARACTERS
But this isnât just true for the history bits unfortunately, itâs also true for the story in itself. If youâve read any historical fiction set in Victorian England before, youâll feel like youâve read âThe Quietnessâ before too at least a dozen times. The novel offers absolutely nothing new to the genre. Everything is a trope, there are zero surprises. I know this sounds like an exaggeration but I mean it: Alison Rattle doesnât stray from post-Victorian fiction tropes one single time. âThe Quietnessâ is basic historical fiction, maybe enjoyable for someone who has never read a book set in 19th century England before but everyone else and especially fans of the genre will feel like theyâve wasted their time.
The story is predictable in every way. You will know what secret Ellenâs parents are keeping from her immediately. You will know what Ellen will discover in the end of the novel right away too. It wasnât fun slugging through 280 pages of Ellen and Queenie being all kinds of clueless and trying to figure out stuff that I already knew. And I didnât know because Iâm Sherlock Holmes and can guess plot twists before they even happen, I knew because Rattle uses the exact same storylines dozens of books have used before without even trying to make them fresh or original. And to add insult to injury she also gives you these hints you canât even ignore. Itâs like sheâs always winking, always nudging you going: âDid you see what I said there? Donât you wanna know what I mean by this?â But youâve already figured it out because her hints arenât hints, sheâs basically giving away her own plot twists.
Iâm pretty sure you can already tell from the blurb whatâs up with the babies at Queenieâs new employerâs house. The thing is, if youâve done some research on Victorian era crime as I have since thatâs basically what I do, youâll know whatâs happening here anyway the moment Queenieâs employer utters her name: Margaret Waters. When it comes to infamous Victorians nothing can surprise me and Iâm pretty sure that name is familiar to you too if youâve been interested in the dark underbelly of Victorian society before. But even if you have no idea who this woman was, youâll figure out what she does way before Queenie does and thatâs not just because âThe Quietnessâ is predictable but also because Rattle tells you. I could have dealt with the tropes and the boring old storylines if there had at least been any tension but no. Alison Rattle wonât have it.
The thing is, tropes are popular for a reason and itâs no crime to use them now and then as long as you use them to build upon, as long as you add some nice twists to them that make your book suspenseful. Rattle just doesnât and thatâs what makes âThe Quietnessâ so bland. That and the characters having no depth whatsoever. Theyâre also bland cardboard cut outs. Ellen is the lonely daughter of rich parents, leading a quiet and uneventful life. She has no aspirations whatsoever, no goals. All we find out about her is that she likes to read but thatâs all. Queenie isnât much better, we also donât ever find out what she enjoys or who she really is but at least she had an aspiration I could understand and relate to: Queenie wants to work her way out of poverty and she does everything in her might to achieve this goal. I liked that and I liked Queenie but in the end she was also not much of a character, we learn nothing about her really.
OF UNFORGIVABLE ENDINGS
What bothered me most however was Ellen. She is the most passive character I ever had the displeasure to read about. She does nothing. She lets everything happen to her, but things never happen because of her. I was waiting for her to bristle, to stand up for herself, to become active and stand her ground against all the people who did her wrong but she never really did. The plans she makes are half-hearted and she never goes through with them. Instead she has everything handed to her, mostly by Queenie. And hereâs where the book turned really ugly. Iâm going to give away the ending and I usually donât do that but I have to so I can explain why this book is getting such a low rating from me. Please only click the spoiler if you have no intentions of reading âThe Quietnessâ or already have read it.
Spoiler
The authorâs treatment of Queenie is appalling. Queenie is from the lowest class of English society, sheâs so poor. All she wants is to be somebody, fight her way out of poverty and be comfortable for once. Thatâs why she seeks work as a maid and ends up at Margaret Watersâ house. Queenie makes some bad decisions. I donât approve of her decisions and I donât want to excuse them but we need to keep in mind that sheâs a fifteen year old girl who grew up in the slums and all she ever wanted was to leave that life behind. So what happens in the end is â to me at least â absolutely unforgivably bad.Queenie gets executed. She gets sentenced to death. We could talk about if you should kill off your fifteen year old protagonists in Young Adult fiction like this in general but thatâs not my point. My point is that this young girl sacrifices everything for Ellen in the end and what she gets is death. Ellen on the other hand gets everything: She gets the money, she even gets Queenieâs family for crying out loud. Thereâs an epiloque set eleven years later in which Ellen and Queenieâs brother admire their pretty clothes because look, Queenieâs family is rich now! Basically everyone is getting the only thing that Queenie ever wanted whilst Queenie is dead at fifteen. This ending left me so angry at the author, so sad and uncomfortable. I felt betrayed and somewhat gross. This felt wrong to me. The poor slum girl basically gets thrown under the bus so the rich girl can learn a valuable lesson and be inspired by her death.
Eleven years later Queenie isnât even as much as an afterthought to Ellen and her own damn brother. This girl who spent the whole book trying to be somebody, to achieve something, gets executed for something she didnât even do and is forgotten by even her own family so that Ellen can have a family and finally be loved or whatever. I kid you not, this is the grossest I have ever felt reading an ending and I canât even properly explain why Iâm so uncomfortable with it. I just feel like what Ellen has in the end, it should have been Queenieâs. She should have at least been part of it. But whilst the rich girl gets everything, the poor slum girl isnât even worth any kind of redemption. Queenieâs dead and everyone else gets the only thing she ever wanted. Iâm really, really uncomfortable with this, especially because itâs a YA book.
There are some other weird âmessagesâ in this book I didnât really like. For instance Ellen is considering getting an abortion but then doesnât when her old maid calls her evil and a child murderer for even thinking about it. Yes, thatâs probably an authentic reaction to abortion for an old Victorian woman but this book is for modern day teenagers and this opinion on abortions is never challenged in anyway. Theyâre bad and they make you a child murderer, even though you never gave your consent to carrying a baby in the first place, even though Ellenâs been raped and is traumatised to discover she is pregnant against her will aged fifteen. What kind of message, intentional or not, is that? It doesnât belong in YA fiction at all. Iâm giving Rattle the benefit of the doubt here. Iâm assuming she just wanted to have the maid react like an old woman in 1870 would react to abortion but itâs still skeevy and demonising.
In the end âThe Quietnessâ left a bitter taste in my mouth. Itâs unoriginal and tropey, the author apparently doesnât understand Victorian society at all, itâs predictable, the characters have no depths whatsoever and the authorâs treatment of one character in particular left me deeply uncomfortable and angry. The thing is, the ending mightâve worked, had the book been more nuanced. Had the characters felt more real, had Victorian society and its attitude towards gender, sexuality and bodies been portrayed more authentically, more complex and nuanced. This book could have been an insightful historical drama about poverty, Victorian society and what it meant to be a woman in the 1800s but itâs just not. Itâs shallow and way too black and white, there arenât any nuances at all.
Iâm giving this book 2.5 points. One point for Queenie, who I really liked despite her lack of depth, one point for the pretty writing style and the dark Victorian atmosphere, half a point for the premise that couldâve been so much more with a lot more work and research. I would have given the book a point more because itâs literally basic historical fiction. Itâs readable even though itâs bland, itâs atmospheric and even though you see all the plot twists coming, itâs entertaining enough, if not enjoyable because itâs way too dark and depressing, especially for Young Adult fiction. But I have to knock the rating down because of that ending and all the weird messages. âThe Quietnessâ made me uncomfortable in the very worst way and I still feel icky thinking about it, even though itâs been days since I finished it.
This review can also be found at The Bookabelles book blog!
lynnbourke's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
teenoli's review against another edition
3.0
the concept was great, but I felt the execution could have been much better.
geekylou's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutly loved this book! The historical side to the book really got me hooked from the first few pages. It is told through the voices of Queenie and Ellen, in 19th century London, both from very different backgrounds yet they become entwined.
A must read for Historical Fiction Fans.
A must read for Historical Fiction Fans.
serendipity_viv's review against another edition
5.0
Originally posted on www.serendipityreviews.co.uk
Told from two perspectives in first and third person, this book portrays a very dark and realistic image of Victorian London. The two main characters, Queenie and Ellenâs are the complete opposite of each other and yet each suffers in their own way. The author takes both extremes and skilfully blends them together.
Queenieâs life is extremely hard. To have to fight for every morsel of food on a daily basis must have been indescribable. Yet she was loved. She came from a family that cared, even if they sometimes went off the rail. However, Queenie is oblivious to the love that surrounds her; she is too consumed by her need to escape poverty to see it.
On the other hand, Ellen has everything money could buy; however money canât buy the thing you need most in life â love. The clinical coldness of her father sent shivers down my spine. He really was a boneless creature. His unhealthy interest in the workings of his daughterâs body was extremely weird. Ellenâs life was cold and lonely and I just wanted to hug her.
Queenie and Ellen are such wonderful characters, with strong convictions and lots of emotion. Through every sadness they suffered, you felt every bit of it through the authorâs narrative. During the birth scene, I felt the strong emotions that bound the mother and child, an excellent example of the writerâs ability to portray realistic emotions through her words.
The story unravels delicately as we gradually learn more about the two girls. Surprises will occur naturally within the plot as you lose yourself in the story. The chapters are quite short and you find yourself reading the book very quickly, eager to find out what happens next to each character.
The descriptions of Victorian London are vivid, yet brutal and honest. The author has taken the historical information and breathed life into it, make it real and easy to imagine. I could easily see this book being televised.
I really loved this book, even though it did make me cry at the end. A stunning portrayal of hidden history that needs to be told.
Told from two perspectives in first and third person, this book portrays a very dark and realistic image of Victorian London. The two main characters, Queenie and Ellenâs are the complete opposite of each other and yet each suffers in their own way. The author takes both extremes and skilfully blends them together.
Queenieâs life is extremely hard. To have to fight for every morsel of food on a daily basis must have been indescribable. Yet she was loved. She came from a family that cared, even if they sometimes went off the rail. However, Queenie is oblivious to the love that surrounds her; she is too consumed by her need to escape poverty to see it.
On the other hand, Ellen has everything money could buy; however money canât buy the thing you need most in life â love. The clinical coldness of her father sent shivers down my spine. He really was a boneless creature. His unhealthy interest in the workings of his daughterâs body was extremely weird. Ellenâs life was cold and lonely and I just wanted to hug her.
Queenie and Ellen are such wonderful characters, with strong convictions and lots of emotion. Through every sadness they suffered, you felt every bit of it through the authorâs narrative. During the birth scene, I felt the strong emotions that bound the mother and child, an excellent example of the writerâs ability to portray realistic emotions through her words.
The story unravels delicately as we gradually learn more about the two girls. Surprises will occur naturally within the plot as you lose yourself in the story. The chapters are quite short and you find yourself reading the book very quickly, eager to find out what happens next to each character.
The descriptions of Victorian London are vivid, yet brutal and honest. The author has taken the historical information and breathed life into it, make it real and easy to imagine. I could easily see this book being televised.
I really loved this book, even though it did make me cry at the end. A stunning portrayal of hidden history that needs to be told.