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⭐⭐⭐'s for Jenny Milchman's The Usual Silence:
Let me just start by saying I wanted to love this book. Its synopsis sounds like an intriguing thriller with a missing child, a psychologist, and a boy that is autistic leading the storyline.
Arles Shepard is a psychologist with a haunting past. When she finds a way to track down the real person from a photograph from her childhood, she finds out the woman has an autistic son that has gone through many unsuccessful therapies. This leads Arles to open up a family centered inpatient therapy she calls FIT.
However, Arles and her mysterious motives for the woman and her son is not the only plot within the novel. There is a 12-year-old girl named Bea that goes missing one dreary day up in Main. Milchman takes us back and forth from giving us tidbits about Arles and what has made her seek out this stranger and her child, to the parents of the missing girl and the depths of their despair and also gives us sneak peeks into Bea's abduction.
While The Usual Silence seems to hold everything I love about a good thriller novel, the two storylines seem like they will never truly cross and they are so very different in subject, tone, and atmosphere, that I felt as if I was reading two different novels, and I wasn't completely satisfied with either one.
When the two stories' do finally intersect, it is at the end of the book. While it is an AH-HA moment, I don't feel like it was much of a surprise. Overall, I feel like some sections dragged on longer than what was necessary to get the same outcome out of the writing.
On the plus side, Milchman's characters are all very different, easy to imagine in your mind, and very personable. The little boy at the center of the novel and the intrigue, is Geary, who has never spoken and started showing signs of autism at 2 years old. I found myself routing for Geary and his dedicated mother Louise. While everyone else has given up on trying to understand him and his needs, Louise fights every day to figure out what her son needs and who he is trapped in the state he is in. Arles becomes a key factor in drawing out what is really going on with young Geary.
Milchman is a solid writer and masterly crafts an atmosphere of tension and dread. She portrays the sheer devastation and hopelessness that young Bea's parents feel after her abduction, with detailed ease.
Despite the minor short comings, The Usual Silence is a great read for fans of psychological thrillers. The vivid descriptions and attention to detail create an immersive experience. The book's exploration of themes such as loss, community, childhood trauma, and the quest for justice adds depth to the novel and makes for some excellent book club discussions.
Check out Jenny Milchman's The Usual Silence for a unique, intertwining plot, and entertaining suspense.
Have you read The Usual Silence? We would love to hear your thoughts on the experience. Comment on this blog post or email us at curriculumlab365@gmail.com and tell us how you feel about the book.
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Stay tuned for our next book review that will feature the first Goodreads Giveaway that I have one entitled Buried Lies by Steven Tingle. On that note, I WON another Goodreads Giveaway and received the book in the mail last week, more to come on the details of that win. Stay tuned for our future blog posts on those books and so much more!
