The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet

Book Review of The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet, by Charity Tahmaseb

I won an Audible copy of The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet, by Charity Tahmaseb, through AudaVoxx.

Description from Goodreads:
Sometimes staying silent is the biggest lie of all.

Sophomore Jolia does the one thing no one expects from the girl who has perfected the art of keeping quiet.

She joins the speech team.

Jolia can’t confess the real reason–not to her best friend, her new teammates, or even to crush-worthy rival Sam who offers to coach her in secret.

Keeping quiet might be the easy way out, but when what Jolia doesn’t say starts to hurt those around her, it might just cost her a best friend, her spot on the team, and even Sam.

But she isn’t the only one with a secret. It’s going to take words–her words–to make things right.

If only Jolia can find them.

Review:
This had many of the elements of contemporary YA literature that I dislike: the pretty girl who doesn’t know she’s pretty, the boy who solves her problems and gives her her confidence back, all the girls outside the main character’s circle were horrible, etc. (Well, so was her best friend. That girl should have taken long walk off a very short pier. She was horrible, but forgiven without even apologizing and I was angered by it more than the other mean girls.)

Despite having plenty of elements I disliked, it was also smart and witty, had a clean narrative voice and relatable high school experience. All of which I enjoyed. Additionally, Ashley Klanac did a good job with the audiobook narration. So, end the end I enjoyed listening to The Fie Art of Keeping Quiet, even if I sneered at certain bits of it.

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