Silence is Goldfish tells the story of Tess Turner – a 15 year old girl who finds out a family truth that turns her world upside down. Rather than face up to the truth, Tess takes a vow of silence, choosing to block everyone out instead; everyone but a plastic children’s torch in the shape of a goldfish who soon becomes her only friend.
I enjoyed this novel throughout as it was rather unusual and unlike anything I’d ever read before. Tess was an interesting character who intrigued me to read further into the story. I wanted to find out more about her silence; where it would take her and how she would continue to cope with the goings-on surrounding her.Annabel Pitcher is brilliant at creating characters and this showed in Silence is Goldfish. You could really come to terms with loving or hating someone. Tess and her friend Isabel were easy enough to like and you could see their friendship within the pages of the book as they joked about and cared for one another. Anna, whilst being the stereotypical school bully, was created for you to hate even when she was trying to be ‘nice’. Henry was a mysterious character who expressed interesting views about the way the world works, and this made him rather intriguing. One of my wishes for the novel was that we got to see more of his character and his friendship with Tess.
I found this novel easy and enjoyable to read and finished it over the course of 24 hours. I liked the way it was told along with the quirkiness of the characters and the story itself. I would recommended this novel to any fans of the authors previous work – I know they will enjoy it as much as I did due to quirky storytelling style of Annabel Pitcher.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
