Quiet No More
Publishing Date: October 13, 2020
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Synopsis:
College freshman Victoria Parker is trying to move on with her life after surviving sexual assault by her father and six months in foster care. She’s focusing on the positives–attending college, living on her own, repairing old relationships and making new ones, and getting involved with an abuse survivors activist group on campus. But everything’s thrown into disarray when a strange woman shows up, claiming to be Victoria’s aunt and asking Victoria to lie about what happened to her. With her father’s sentencing in a few months, she’s nervous about having to share the truth of what happened with a judge. She’s not even sure if she has the strength to go through with it. But when her fellow club members begin pressuring her to speak out, Victoria has to decide how to share her story while remaining true to herself.
TW: Discussion of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse as well as toxic relationships.
Victoria’s story continues in Quiet No More. Her father is in jail and she is starting her college career, but the trauma she’s been through over the past year still follows her as she tries to move past it. Worse yet, her case isn’t over and she still has to decide what kind of victim impact statement she wants to submit against her father in court.
I enjoyed the previous book in this series, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this book. How much more was there to Victoria’s story? She’s out of foster care (with her stepmother albeit) and attending a college that seems to have a healthy environment for her. Turns out, there was a lot more to her story.
I personally have thought a bit about what really happens to victims/survivors after their abuser is put in jail. I always wondered if they would be able to begin to heal as they still knew that they would have to face this person in court for them to receive justice. Also, would they receive justice, as many abusers don’t get long sentences? This book begins to tackle these issues one by one. Victoria has to deal with a long-lost family member taking her father’s side, and even her own qualms about putting the man who raised her for years in a situation in jail where he might be abused himself. She also has to face the truth about her father’s past, a past she didn’t even know existed. This part of the book spoke to me the most, as Victoria wrote and rewrote her Victim Impact Statement trying to figure out the truth behind her feelings.
The parts of Victoria at college gave me mixed feelings. I loved the idea of a club of people who had survived their own abuse trying to save other students in their college who may be currently dealing with abuse. They know firsthand what these people may be going through and what the signs of abuse are. They are also the same age as the other students, so the students may feel more comfortable opening up to them than opening up to the college’s administration about their experiences. Their motives seemed good, and their club seemed like it was there to help folks rather than to hurt folks.
Nevertheless, Victoria was definitely not in a headspace to be working with any type of club that focused on her abuse. She was still in the thick of the trauma and didn’t seem to be receiving any type of professional help for it. Some people in the club had been abused years ago, and were better equipped to help others after years of treatment. Victoria’s abuse was simply too fresh, and I think being in that club (especially because of some of the members) was too much for her to try to take on in her first year of college. Another thing that was too much for her to take on in her first year of college was trying to maintain a long-distance relationship with her high school boyfriend. She needed time to truly be able to heal, and it was obvious from the start that being in a relationship was not going to be a healthy route for her. I think the involvement of her in these two things gave this character more pain than she needed during this already difficult time. It was difficult reading about Victoria dealing with these things that felt rather unnecessary.
Despite those things, this book drew me in even more than the last one, and I ended up finishing it all in one night. I was happy that Connie didn’t make much of a reappearance, and I enjoyed reading about Victoria healing her relationship with her stepmother and Sarah. Victoria’s aunt was….a whole other story but I feel like she played an important part in the book that really couldn’t have been removed. It is important to recognize that sometimes family members will side with the abuser instead of the abused, making the whole situation more difficult than it has to be. These important messages made the book for me, outweighing the college and relationship incidents.
I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a NA novel that discusses trauma and its effects on someone’s life.
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 books.
Author Info:
Nikki Barthelmess is an author of young adult books, including THE QUIET YOU CARRY, QUIET NO MORE (October 13, 2020), and EVERYTHING WITHIN AND IN BETWEEN (HarperChildren’s, fall 2021). Nikki entered foster care in Nevada at twelve and spent the next six years living in six different towns. During this time, Nikki found solace in books, her journal, and the teachers who encouraged her as a writer. A graduate of the University of Nevada, Nikki lives in Santa Barbara with her family.
Author Links:
Giveaway (US only):
There is a chance to win a final copy of The Quiet You Carry and Quiet No More. This is a US only giveaway! The giveaway ends on September 8th.
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This is such an amazing review! Thank you for being on the tour.
Candyce (TBR and Beyond Tours Team)