At last, after waiting so long, I finally have my hand’s on Alice’s second book, Radio Silence! I love her so much, her two books and two novellas have - no exaggeration - given me life. So I would just like to begin this review by saying this: I would give it one thousand stars, if goodreads allowed me to. I am being a massive fangirl in today’s blog post, but I’m not sorry because Alice Oseman is my favourite author so I think I’m allowed.
Frances Janvier is top of her class and headed to Cambridge. Nothing is going to stop her from achieving her goal, to the point that she isn’t really close to any of her ‘friends’ at school, and nobody sees her outside of school. Her only real friend, her best friend, ran away over a year ago, and she has no idea where she went and has no way of finding out.
There are two sides to Frances Janvier. On one side, she is an uber-clever study machine, who aces all her exams and seems to only care about doing things that will get her into Cambridge, such as being head girl, and seemingly nothing else. She is the ultimate role model for the lower years.
Then there is the Frances that no one at school knows exists. The one that is obsessed with a small and practical unknown youtube podcast called Universe City - with an anonymous creator known as Radio Silence. She draws fan art about the show and spends her down time lounging around her room in burger jumpers - but she doesn’t allow anyone other than her mother to see this side of her.
Until Frances becomes friends with Aled Last, and then she finally feels free to be herself around someone. Telling your ex-best friend’s twin brother why it’s your fault she ran away mustn’t have been easy, but despite that fact, Aled and Frances become the best of friends, with an unbreakable bond that is devoid of any romance whatsoever.
Radio Silence touched me even more than Solitaire did, which I think was because this book focused more heavily on the impending doom of university, a part of my life that I definitely struggled with, so this book hit me on a much more personal level - much like Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.
University is a very strong theme in this book - some characters lack the grades to even have the opportunity to go to university, some are being actively pushed into going to university, either by their parents or through expectation, and this is something I forget happens to people. My parents encouraged me to better myself by going to university, but never pushed, and I love them for that. I sometimes think my parents found my first few months at university just as difficult as I did.
University is not for everyone, and that was my take-away from this book. Alice writes all her stories from the heart, and that is something that always makes me feel like I know her better than I already do.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, of course I’m going to give it five stars. I cannot wait to see what Alice does next. ★★★★★
