Nadine (23dollars) - reviewed on 8/18/2014 + 432 more book reviews

THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE was the August 2014 pick in my online book club, The Reading Cove.

I tend to prefer stories told from multiple points-of-view, because it allows for greater insight, a more well-rounded view of things, and a quicker pace. That wasn't the case here.

It's the author's first book and it's not very well-plotted, so it moves at a snail's pace and can be considered downright boring. You could rename it THE WEIGHT OF BACK-STORY DUMPS. ッ

And since the prologue could be viewed as a major spoiler, there's really very little mystery here, and the characters aren't interesting enough to offset the flat narrative. They read like folks who just need a trailer park to set up shop in and call it a day. The mother, Antonia, is not sympathetic at allconsidering that her child went missing in the middle of the night, she should hardly be consumed with a near constant narrative of memories about her first true love as the supposedly frantic search is on to find her missing daughter!

Not to mention that Toni's reasoning leaves something to be desired. She dumps her true love because he's going away temporarily, but marries a drunk who travels all the time for work...yeah, that makes sense.

I give it a C-. The writing and structure of this novel is too amateurish to recommend, but the premise wasn't a bad one really. So there's definitely room for Heather Gudenkauf to grow as a writer.

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