Soundless by Richelle Mead (Spoiler free review, I swear!)

Heyya Book bugs! I know I’ve been inactive for more than a year but that’s a story for another day. 

This spoiler free review is divided into a few parts. So read the ones you are interested in and ditch the others. Or read it all! Whatever you wish. ; )

A) Blurb
B) Why I read it
C) Characters
D) Thoughts

A) Blurb

So basically in this book the protagonist’s town is completely silent as no one can hear a thing. Now these people don’t possess a fertile land and ergo depend on the town far away for food in exchange for the metal these people mine. This exchhange happens through a zip line. (Sounds cool but isn’t that cool, it can carry only 30kgs, so bummer.)

Now these villagers, in addition to being deaf, slowly start to loose their sight as well and thus, less people to mine metal and less food in exchange. Their village is literally in a threat of darkness and starvation.

This is all until Fei (the protagonist, duh) gains her sense of hearing. Yes, she actually can hear. And now it’s up to her and the boy she loves to save their town. (Isn’t this interesting? And this is based on a Chinese myth.)

B) Why I read it

So I usually just randomly pick up books. Just like ‘ok so I maybe I have seen this cover somewhere or some person told me about this, so let’s read it’. Or just read the goodreads synopsis and then decide to read it….or I am influenced by the blogs and booktube.

But for this book, I had already read some books from this author before. I am actually a big fan of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series (not the spin off series) and I wanted to read something else by her. But I kid you not, I’ve been stalling a lot to read this. I wanted to read this since it came out but I made up one excuse after another and now finally came around to actually reading it. And I am happy I did.

Also, everyone on booktube was recommending this book so much that I couldn’t go to video without the soundless poping up (at least around it’s release anyway). I finally (FINALLY) ditched all my excuse in the dump and read it.

C) Characters

FEI: This girl, mostly, seemed like a picture perfect protagonist.

She is brave and takes on social responsibility i.e. saving her people from the imminent doom even if it kinda damages her own personal priorities.
She does have a ton of empathy and… wait for it… she is not full of herself or arrogant. She also does behave like a normal human being with doubts, romantic desires and a love for her home. The only thing that seems really heroic about her is that she takes a lot of risks…ummm wait, that’s really, really normal behaviour for a human too. ; p

LI WEI: He is introduced as the most basic love interest (though later on he did define that he is charming…wait, that’s still how love interest in YA novels are portrayed).
Piercing eyes? Check.
Hot? Check.
Muscular? Check.
The girl is rendered speechless in front of him? Check!
Fearless and heroic? Check annnd check.
But as I read more and more I could see that this character is more than just superficial hotness ( not that abs are bad in anyway. If you know what I mean ; D)
What were the additions you ask? Let’s see…
Selfless acts (although pretty reckless and stupid). Check.
An undying devotion to Fei (which does lead him to do pretty stupid things). Check.
Brave and Charming? Check and check.
And last but not the least… he is pretty stupid sometimes but that’s redeemable.

D) Thoughts

Okay these are basically spoiler free thoughts here, so it’s just me trying to convince y’all to read this book.

“‘Somethings don’t need words’… ‘Everything need a word’…’we need to know how to describe the world. Otherwise we’d fall into ignorance.’… ‘Sometimes it’s enough to just feel. You don’t have to label and articulate all that’s around you.'”

Well, to be honest the plot was amazing and all and I really did like that this is all inspired from Chinese mythology but it was not that engaging for me.

What I mean with that is the build up of the plot and the concept were taken and executed quite well here. The descriptions about everything were amazing, especially the hearing part; whenever Fei described hearing it felt magical, almost surreal. For me, I did love to read it but there were parts when I wanted to take a break from this book – if that even makes sense. All in all, it was quite entertaining and reading from the point of view of a person who is just discovering the joys of hearing was amazing. Quite literally, for these people sound is actually a legend. Just stories told by the community descended down from the ancestors that lived in the captivity of the same village.

What do you think? Wanna give this book a shot? What? You say some people have already read book? (Mock surprised gasp!)

No worries, I’ll hopefully upload a spoiler-y review soon. Be sure to catch up on that.
Lemme know your thoughts on the comment section below. Go follow me on goodreads and Instagram… But only if want. No pressure. Although I do upload some funny things up in the stories on Instagram every once in a while. Or well I do like to think that they are funny. 

XOXO

Osheen