A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard - NO

A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard, 385 pgs. Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster), 2018. $19.

Language: R (130 swears, 14 “f”); Mature Content: R; Violence: PG

BUYING ADVISORY: HS – NO

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

Steffi has anxiety to the degree that sometimes she can’t speak. And nobody understands because everyone wants to point to a logical explanation and fix her when selective mutism will never work that way. Along comes Rhys, a deaf boy who doesn’t look at Steffi as if she has a problem and needs a cure. Together they fight to prove to themselves and those around them that a person’s worth is not dependent on abilities.

The premise was awesome and the messages about communication came across loud and clear: there is more to communication than words. I also like how Barnard addresses mental illness, specifically anxiety. However, I understood that message halfway through, and the rest of the story seemed repetitive after that as Steffi and Rhys struggled to learn what I had been taught by reading about them. The mature content was explicit sexual situations, and, after the first scene like that, my enthusiasm to keep reading waned because I didn’t want to come across another explicit scene (I did, by the way. I skipped three scenes.).

Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen