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A review by votesforwomen
The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
4.0
I hate comparing books from the same author! Really, really hate it! Because when an author writes one of your all-time favorite books...at least for me, even if they're an autobuy author as a result, I'll have one main story I love from an author and then everything else is Okay. (A few marked exceptions exist, such as Maggie Stiefvater, ahahaha, but overall THIS IS THE RULE).
I love Sepetys's Salt to the Sea. Love it love it LOVE IT. The problem with comparing this book to Salt to the Sea is that they're both ridiculously different. Like...this book is 500 pages. It jumps between about 15 different storylines. It's a mystery where you don't KNOW what the outcome is going to be. In Salt to the Sea, it's hard to go into it NOT knowing what's going to happen. You know disaster is coming, and the whole thing is paced more like a thriller. Not so with this story. This is slow burn, and I wish I could say it was slow burn at its finest, but it's only...close to finest.
I think this book could easily be 100 pages shorter. Don't ask me how--I do think all the subplots are important. But some of the secrets that serve more as red herrings got blown WAAAAAY out of proportion, and I didn't care about them as much. The payoff, in the end, was excellent, but I wished the pacing had sped up a wee bit and made my life move a little faster. This book took me over a week to read (which is REALLYYYYY slow for me!)
The characters, though. Especially Daniel. Daniel is adorable and out for answers, but slowly realizing that maybe...maybe that ISN'T what he needs to be doing. Maybe instead of gathering answers to make a story, he needs to gather answers and understand what the story IS. It's a very interesting take on an outsider trying to understand a nation and culture and story that he is not a part of, and I loved it. None of the characters are cruel (not the main ones, anyway) and none of them are straight-up in the wrong. They all have complexities and depth and it's beautiful.
Some sexy content (not much, though). The violence is worse, and there's a lot of death and darkness and stuff--although, perhaps because of the 3rd person present tense, I felt disconnected? Like at one point a major character DIED and there was next to no reaction from ANYONE. That was kind of the whole feel, in my opinion. Stuff like that happened for shock value and then there was very little payoff. So...yeah.
Overall, I recommend this one for a look at a culture forgotten by history, a story about a world torn apart and the depravity of man. A new favorite? No. But good anyway? YES MA'AM.
3.75 stars
I love Sepetys's Salt to the Sea. Love it love it LOVE IT. The problem with comparing this book to Salt to the Sea is that they're both ridiculously different. Like...this book is 500 pages. It jumps between about 15 different storylines. It's a mystery where you don't KNOW what the outcome is going to be. In Salt to the Sea, it's hard to go into it NOT knowing what's going to happen. You know disaster is coming, and the whole thing is paced more like a thriller. Not so with this story. This is slow burn, and I wish I could say it was slow burn at its finest, but it's only...close to finest.
I think this book could easily be 100 pages shorter. Don't ask me how--I do think all the subplots are important. But some of the secrets that serve more as red herrings got blown WAAAAAY out of proportion, and I didn't care about them as much. The payoff, in the end, was excellent, but I wished the pacing had sped up a wee bit and made my life move a little faster. This book took me over a week to read (which is REALLYYYYY slow for me!)
The characters, though. Especially Daniel. Daniel is adorable and out for answers, but slowly realizing that maybe...maybe that ISN'T what he needs to be doing. Maybe instead of gathering answers to make a story, he needs to gather answers and understand what the story IS. It's a very interesting take on an outsider trying to understand a nation and culture and story that he is not a part of, and I loved it. None of the characters are cruel (not the main ones, anyway) and none of them are straight-up in the wrong. They all have complexities and depth and it's beautiful.
Some sexy content (not much, though). The violence is worse, and there's a lot of death and darkness and stuff--although, perhaps because of the 3rd person present tense, I felt disconnected? Like at one point a major character DIED and there was next to no reaction from ANYONE. That was kind of the whole feel, in my opinion. Stuff like that happened for shock value and then there was very little payoff. So...yeah.
Overall, I recommend this one for a look at a culture forgotten by history, a story about a world torn apart and the depravity of man. A new favorite? No. But good anyway? YES MA'AM.
3.75 stars