Archer's Voice

Well, this was disappointing. After seeing a lot of good reviews for this book, I wasn't pleased to find out that it was a complete waste of time. It is good that deaf people were represented in this, and it was done well, but that is about the only decent thing I can say.

I felt that this was a very forced story, almost everything was cliche from the troubled girl moving to a small, countryside town, to the misunderstood guy finally meeting someone who 'gets him'. One way I guess it could be described as is that the author was trying to include as much as possible because then at least something had to have gone well.

I found Bree extremely annoying. She was a very chaotic character who couldn't make up her mind. I really can't say anything good about this, her whole character felt extremely false, and the tragic backstory felt like it was included as an afterthought. I'm not saying that characters can't have one, many other books do have characters with trauma in the past, but in those books, they are written well and contribute to the story. It shouldn't feel like an afterthought that was just added to reach a certain word count.

Archer was a slightly better character but still not great. Some of his story felt a bit rushed, but I did think that the incident when he was young where his parents died, was sincere. It is a good book for representing deaf people, which I do think was an important aspect for the author, and I think it is important that we see more diversity in fiction, rather than just the basic stereotypes. However, I was not a fan of his disappearance towards the end of the book, as it just seemed like the author didn't know how to end the book, and wanted to make the story longer for some reason.

The side characters also felt forced. This book really had a lot of things that I have read elsewhere, a lot of times, but each is better than this. I think almost anything could be better than this. Jock bullies a lonely weird kid. Girl runs to a small town to get away from problems. Love triangle. Boy leaves small town, has a revelation, runs back to the 'love of his life'. These are only some of the cliches I picked up on whilst reading, and it felt like a very childish book, some odd fanfiction.

The epilogue also did not help this at all. Skip to five years later and they are happily married with children and everything from before is forgotten.

Basically, I really did not like this book. I wouldn't say hate, but it took me so long to finish as it was so boring. I think it could have been made much better if a lot of the story was removed, and was replaced with meaningful content, rather than side thoughts that just felt like filler chapters.

★