Radio Silence

Publisher's Summary

From critically acclaimed author Alice Oseman comes a smartly crafted contemporary YA novel, perfect for fans who love Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. This is an utterly captivating and authentic teen novel from the author of Solitaire, which VOYA said “could put her among the great young adult fiction authors.”

Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying. 

Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As. 

You probably think that they are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and she is a girl.

They don’t. They make a podcast. 

In a world determined to shut them up, knock them down, and set them on a cookie cutter life path, Frances and Aled struggle to find their voices over the course of one life-changing year. Will they have the courage to show everyone who they really are? Or will they be met with radio silence? 

©2017 Alice Oseman (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Emotional To Say The Least

I’ve been meaning to read Radio Silence for a couple months now and I’m glad I waited to pick it up on audiobook. Radio Silence had me sobbing on my drive home today as the struggles of Frances and Aled hit so close to home. I was so happy that it wasn’t a love story and represented so many different communities.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

I guess it's not for me

Almost reached the end but got tired of it, feels very slow and repetitive. It has some good points. Maybe it's for younger people.
Maybe it's the audio format that didn't work for me, cause it has lots of online chat logs back and forth and you have to listen to each hour and name of each message. The moms felt very 'one note'. The 'mystery' was kinda obvious... well,not bad, not bad

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Heartwarming

3,5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This was good.
Warnings for this book: there's parental abuse (part of the plot) and heavy depression.
I loved Francis as the main character. And also, Alid. Of course. Alid's my favourite.
Here are the good things:
- The characters were amazing, I loved every second of them and I loved spending every second with them.
- The queer rep was very good, at least I can say that from my own experience. I loved the fact that all of our main characters were queer. I LOVED that.
- Reading this book warmed my heart.
- It is definitely not your normal-classic-YA-contemporary book. It is very different and that's why I liked it a lot.

The things I didn't like that much:
- There is no plot.
Honestly, I definitely see why some people find themselves in this book. I totally get that. But I didn't feel like I "found myself", I just enjoyed the characters. Some parts, I identified a lot with Alid, who's my favourite character in the whole book, but other than that, it's just a 'find yourself' story. Even though I love 'find yourself' stories -- I liked this one, too -- sometimes they're just not 5 stars worthy to me.
I can say this was 3,75, honestly. You decide on that. If we have to scale it on the 2019-books list, I can definitely say it was so much better than Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid for me. It was a little below The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It's a heart warming story about finding yourself.

Great audiobook

3.5 stars
I am not the target demographic for this book, but I still love so many things about it.
The diversity is impressive. The main character is multi-racial and bi; Aled is Demi-sexual (that was a new one for me and I had to look it up); Daniel is Korean/American and gay, and another character is Indian. It isn’t the main focus of the book, but I still found it refreshing.
I thought the story seemed realistic. The characters, the dialogue, the angst, it was all believable.
But for me, the thing that made me round up to 4 stars instead of down to 3 was the platonic, soul-mate relationship between Francis and Aled. I loved that they were not romantically involved, but still had a strong love and bond. (I so often want this platonic connection in my fictional characters, examples -Mulder and Scully, the leads in The Killing. But I almost never get it as romance seems to be the only way that love is portrayed as redemptive and life-changing in books and movies.)
For some reason, this book made me feel old, though. As a middle school teacher, I try to read a mixture of middle age and YA fiction. I have absolutely loved books like Wonder, Eleanor and Parke, and Wednesday Wars. There was something about those books that resonated with me. But with this one, I felt more like an outside observer. I still don’t completely understand why.
I am glad I listened to the audiobook version of this. The voices were excellent and I loved the accents. I think I enjoyed this more as an audiobook than I would have as a physical read.

Brilliant!!!

I can not find the words to describe this book and how good it is! Alice Oseman is amazing, she is addressing so many issues that kids might be going through when dealing with such an important decision like going to college and what to do for the rest of their lives. One of my favorites definitely!