A Quiet Kind of Thunder
Sara Barnard
Steffi doesn’t talk and Rhys can’t hear. Thrown together because Steffi has a passing grasp of sign language, their friendship is something that might widen Steffi’s world – or perhaps make her life harder…
Ah, the depiction of first love is fantastic here. They are both equally awkward, and yet Barnard doesn’t make it contrite and irritating. Instead she seems to let it grow organically out of friendship. There is a matter of fact discussion and depiction of sex, and its not overly squeamish, yet still gets to the heart of the matter.
I knew I needed to read this novel, and then I found myself reading it in one setting because I enjoyed it so much. Something about the pacing, the characters, the individuality of telling a novel through including seamlessly incorporated texts, handsigns and emails – brilliant.
Social anxiety is something that is getting better coverage in all areas of fiction. This is not the first novel I have read that includes a protagonist who is a selective mutist. So Much To Tell You might be the first teenage novel that approached the topic, while The Things I Didn’t Say is a more YA novel that approaches the question of love as well.
I’ve going to give this lovely novel 4 stars. I liked Beautiful Broken Things, and I’m really looking forward to more from this author.
As is understandable, Sara Barnard is a busy lady! I’ve got two interview questions that she was kind enough to answer for me though 🙂
Sex is something you’ve explored quite frankly in A Quiet Kind of Thunder? Why is that?
I try to approach everything I write about honestly, and I don’t think sex should be any different. I’m not interested in sugarcoating or romanticizing anything. With sex, I think young people are given enough of that as it is, and that’s confusing enough already. It’s not all soft sheets, pastel colours and fireworks! And I think teens deserve to see that reflected in their fiction.
Could you give us a hint into anything about your next novel?
It’s all under wraps at the moment, but I will tell you that friendship plays a major role again.
Maybe I missed something major by not having read the first book in the series. I felt like I had been dropped into a very slow plot that nevertheless didn’t build anything for me, and then the second half couldn’t get my attention despite moving more quickly.
Flora, you’re a little naive, and I can understand why your parents want to protect you. Ok, so you are a lot naive. What is to say bad things haven’t happened? I’m not sure you would have remembered, and so as an unreliable narrator, we would never hear about it.
Seneca! I love you! And best of all, your characterisation is very human and not as if you are a saint. I could have had more of you, and way less of all the other characters who mainly seemed to be concerned with who they were kissing next. That’s not to say that Seneca didn’t also have that problem, but she seemed to have her feet firmly on the ground and some guts to go with it.
Ollie isn’t introduced until mid-way through the novel, and by then I was already too attached to the Erin-Joe relationship to give him any time. Ollie, you are boring and you can’t redeem yourself in my eyes. Self-centred bastard who can’t see past his own guilt.
Plenty of ooze, vomit, snot and gore in this novel, but with epic illustrative depictions that make you feel like you are right there on the scene. Yes, some parts of it were completely overboard, but I just rolled with it. It had the immediacy of action that I missed from 
Despite starting out like a corrective detention redemption and revenge novel, this rapidly degenerates to a Lord of the Flies drama. Trey is infected with a Demon that burns to burn things. The girl he likes has interesting looking scars on her back. Then all the adults go to hell, and the kids wreak havoc on everything. Power corrupts. What is new?
Personally, I think the blurb on GoodReads gives far too much away. You start to get inklings of something being wrong with this generation of Queens as you are reading, and to have them all knocked away before you even start reading would be a serious detriment to your enjoyment of the novel.
Sabriel has always been an established Abhorson in my eyes, but here we see Lirael grow into what she should be. When she returns to the Glacier where she grew up, it is obvious that there has been some serious character growth coming on. We get to see more of that in this novel too, as well as Sameth (who I hold a personal soft spot for) and Nick.
This novel lets its main character develop the way I would want, but could have left a bit more time for other characters to put their own 2 cents in. I would have liked to have more of everything, the world as it was many years before the rest of the series, and the state of society.