Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton - review

UKYA is just getting better. And with this stunning debut by British author, Abbie Rushton, this is no longer an opinion, but a fact.

Unspeakable is the gorgeously written novel telling the story of Megan. Megan has been a mute ever since the death of her best friend, Hana. Along with her friend Luke, Megan has an underlying guilt about something that happened to do with Hana's death. Then Jasmine comes along. Jasmine is the new girl, and she takes a sudden interest in Megan. But Megan is scared of finding her voice, because finding her voice would only mean one thing. The truth.

Writing about a mute, unless you're one yourself, is difficult to get right. How can you find out what a mute is feeling, if they can't tell you? It's hard to do, both emotionally and in terms of writing. Yet Rushton has totally smashed this one: she pulls Unspeakable off with total sensitivity, a narrative that is excitingly enticing, which draws you in from page one.

I loved Unspeakable for various reasons. I loved how Unspeakable has these underlining factors that it tackles, as well as the mains plotline of Hana's death and Megan being a mute. It tackles sexuality (I'm not only talking about relationships, here - the topic of calling someone or something 'gay' also comes up), and it tackles bullying (Sadie and Lindsay taunt Megan constantly) - it tackles guilt, it tackles silence. It tells the tale of noise and silence, and the battle between the two. I have no idea how this book is only a few hundred pages, with the amount Rushton managed to get in. It's brilliantly balanced, and manages not to cross the line of being patronising, either. As a teenager, fiction about teenagers written by adults can often cross that line, but Unspeakable simply isn't.

I don't want to end on a downer, so I may as well mention here why Unspeakable didn't get my full five stars. Firstly, I would have liked to know more about Jasmine: I didn't feel like we learnt enough about her or her background. Can I also point out that all the mysterious, cool new girls in fiction are ALWAYS called Jasmine?! That's not a criticism, just food for thought! My other issues with Unspeakable was that, for me anyway, the ending was quite predictable, and for that reason, I wouldn't market it as a thriller. However, this predictability didn't draw away from the book, because it was following HOW it was going to happen that made the book brilliant - I just would market it to a slightly different audience, not one for being that want a thrill, because that isn't one of Unspeakable's stand-out assets. The book is featured around love, friendship, guilt, trust and finding out the truth - I think that would possibly be a better description than a thriller.

I also loved having letters in between chapters: it gave something to the plot, and particularly the ones to Hana made the whole thing a little more chilling. I think, ultimately, it was the relationships between the characters, from Megan to Jasmine, to Megan and her mum, that were so brilliantly done and that made the book different from your average fiction novel.

Overall, I'm excited to see what Abbie Rushton comes up with next. Because, for a debut author, this is pretty fabulous, and as I said on Twitter, I wish I could wipe my memory so I could devour it again and again.

• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.

Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!