Silver

Silver

(image from chriswooding.com)

Okay, I'm going to put the actual summary here, but I swear it's not because I'm lazy. You'll see why later.

Paul is the new kid at Mortingham Boarding Academy, and he has a dark secret.
Caitlyn admires Paul from afar and resents that he only has eyes for Erika.
Erika thinks that she and Caitlyn are best friends, but she's wrong.
Adam is a bully with a major chip on his shoulder.
Mark is outgrowing his old friends but doesn't know how to make new ones.

In a few short hours, none of this will matter. Without warning, a horrifying infection will spread across the school grounds, and a group of students with little in common will find themselves barricaded in a classroom, fighting for their lives. Some will live. Some will die. And then it will get even worse.

(Summary EBILLY taken from its amazon page)

Okay, this review has a lot of spoilers. You might as well ignore it if you don't want spoilers.

Silver is a book I'll have trouble describing. I desperately want to say it was good or bad, but it just... wasn't. It felt like it wasn't even there. However, I'll try my best to break it into parts.

The plot screamed "zombies!", but it wasn't a regular zombie book. It had a different take on zombies, making them something new and interesting. It also wasn't a robot-uprising book. Frankly, I hadn't ever thought the two could even come together, much less so well. Anyone know any other genre combining books like this? I'm really getting to like them.

The characters were distinct in their own ways, but I'm going to have to admit their voices didn't seem too different. That might have been just because the narrative was third person (making it, like, a yasreadyas first, I think). At the same time, it was just a little too hard to differentiate them. The boys were much better off than the girls in that respect. They had plenty of development and were active characters. Generally, they were just so much better than the girls. Caitlyn and Erika were nearly indistinguishable if you didn't pay attention to the opinions they were stating. 

Continuing on the last paragraph, I don't even think this book passed the Bechdel test. With two female main characters, I'm not certain if it passed the narrative Bechdel test, if that exists. Caitlyn's thoughts entirely revolve around Paul or being mad at Erika because Paul likes her. Just read the mini descriptions in the summary. The boys all get blurbs of their own. Caitlyn's is about Paul. Erika's is about Caitlyn, and it tracks back to Paul. I don't know, it just made me really uncomfortable how little Caitlyn and Erika acted on their own.

The boys, I'll restate, were really interesting. Paul was an extremely proactive character who's actions were great to follow. Mark was my personal hero, as the socially inept geek trying to look normal. And failing. Miserably. There are probably a few readers on here who can relate to that. Adam's backstory was blurry and a bit generic (bully who's only mean because of a bad home life, thus making them unaccountable for all actions), but his character, present tense, was strong and true.

The descriptions in this book were fantastic. How the Infected were shown was so interesting. It felt like you could really see them. Also, they were painfully creepy. So maybe you don't want to see them. However, if you enjoy being plagued by nightmares for what may be the rest of your natural life, this is your book!

Subtle mentions at the beginning of the book may become very important later on, just warning you. I liked how everything tied together that way.

Since the romance didn't quite exist outside of one-sidedly, I'll give you this mini-rant. Why is science always the bad guy in these books? Why? You are not helping anyone by making science evil. I mean...

(Before I forget, trigger warnings for the book- Suicide, death)

~Corinne