After surviving sexual assault by her father and six months in foster care, college freshman Victoria Parker is trying to move on with her life.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 … 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, Victoria’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.
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I would like to thank North Star Publishing and the netgalley website for allowing me to read this book which is the sequel to “The quiet you carry”.
I love the cover of this book which is beautiful where we see Victoria Parker in profile.
Victoria is in her first year of college and is trying to move on with her life, having had a trauma in her past, a sexual assault by her father and having lived in foster care for almost six months. She’s going to focus on her new life, her studies, her friends and will be part of an advocacy group for abuse survivors within the university. Except that everything changes when a very strange, mysterious woman shows up and claims to be her aunt, forcing her to lie about the abuse. Her father’s trial is coming up and Victoria will have to decide if she will tell the truth or not during this trial.
A book read in one sitting, so much so that I was hooked on the story, so moving in certain passages, addictive, captivating, gripping, full of suspense and twists and turns with very endearing characters.
Readers may expect Nikki Barthelmess’s Quiet No More [North Star Editions, October 13, 2020], the sequel to The Quiet You Carry, to continue following the tumultuous life of a young woman dealing with the trauma she experiences following the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her father. While Quiet No More does follow the events after the young woman’s father is convicted of his crimes, it is much more than what typical young adult novels focusing on tough experiences tend to be. Quiet No More is much more a novel depicting the inner struggles one must go through in order to heal from their past.
Quiet No More continues the story of college freshman, Victoria Parker, as she tries to navigate her new life in Reno after her father is convicted of sexual abuse against children in her home of Silver Valley. In order to try to control her whirlwind of a life, Victoria decides to join SASAH—Students Against Sexual Assault and Harassment, a club that focuses on helping sexual assault survivors. Shortly after beginning her freshman year and navigating her place amongst the other students in SASAH, Victoria finds herself in the middle of even more problems than she had before. An aunt Victoria never knew she has suddenly walks into her life and causes several problems for her, a student in charge of funding SASAH blackmails her into keeping a deep dark secret private, and some friends even betray her.
There are many reasons why this is a novel both adult and young adult readers should pick up, one of them being the way Victoria’s progression and healing from her trauma is portrayed. At the beginning of the novel, it is clear that Victoria has not had enough time to come to terms with her trauma and to begin healing from it. One of the ways Victoria is able to heal from the abuse she suffered at the hands of her own father is through the new friends she makes at SASAH. Even though some of these new friends end up having some conflicts with Victoria, the way she is able to connect with these new people on a different level is one of the ways she is able to change into a more confident and stronger woman by the book’s conclusion. Additionally, readers may find it comforting to know that there are other people in the world who have had to deal with many unfair circumstances. Another aspect of the novel that is enjoyable and readers could benefit from it is the way Barthelmess is able to portray the trauma recovery process. The recovery process is often described as somewhat of a “rollercoaster” and it definitely portrays this accurately through the conflicts Victoria finds within herself, her family, and her group of friends.
In addition to the different portrayals of recovery and struggle, the novel provides many different relationships between Victoria and the people around her. From betrayal to heartbreak, readers will be able to see and understand why Victoria feels the way she does about the trauma she faced in the previous novel. From beginning to end, readers are able to see Victoria’s transformation from a shell of a person into the woman she was always meant to become; a strong and resilient one.
While the majority of Quiet No More focuses on Victoria dealing with her trauma, there are several instances where her thought process leaves a lot to be desired. When it comes to the way Victoria reacts to difficulties that come into her life, it seems as if instead of trying to be strong she shuts down and blocks everyone out—including the reader. It would be helpful if readers were able to see Victoria actually sit with herself and work with her trauma more throughout the novel instead of at the conclusion. Then, readers would be able to connect to Victoria more and understand why she reacts to these situations the way she does, especially if they have not experienced trauma themselves.
Quiet No More is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of October 13th 2020.
Quiet No More is the sequel to the contemporary YA novel The Quiet You Carry. The main character Victoria is now in college, has joined a campus advocacy group and is trying to maintain ties with her boyfriend, friends and family back home. Although she’s making forward strides in recovering from her assault she struggling with the impact statement needed for her abuser’s sentencing. To further complicate matters her father’s sister shows up to fill in some missing gaps in her family history.
A lot of teen books are angsty. A lot are angsty for no reason. This is not the latter. What I appreciated about this duology is that the author shows how abused children can struggle under expectations. Even Victoria’s well-meaning friends, family and members of the activist group have strong feelings about how she should handle her father.
She isn’t given the luxury of finding her own way or searching for the right words to use in her victim statement.
As fun as love triangles can be you can also see the sadder side through this book. As Victoria moves forward in Reno it’s difficult to stay connected to Kale back home and she begins to question their relationship.
We even have a “bad guy” as a rival group starts a men’s rights club and uses any means to denigrate Victoria and fellow activist’s hard work and cut off pathways to funding.
I recommend this duology to anyone that wants to read a non-typical young adult contemporary novel that speaks to being a survivor, activism and paving your own road.
My copy was provided by NetGalley for reviewing purposes