Radio Silence: TikTok made me buy it! From the YA Prize winning author and creator of Netflix series HEARTSTOPPER

Product Information

I loved the characters. Aled had to be my favourite, since I feel like I have a similar personality with him and I really connect with him. I saw myself in so many of the situations that he was in. Also let's not forget that he dyes his hair a lot. I love seeing characters who love dying they hair as I do. this coming from someone who had more haircolors than they could count Not an unintelligent idiot, but a sort of naïve idiot who manages to fall into a difficult situation and then can’t get out of it because she’s too awkward.” Aled later appears as a side character in the webcomic, Heartstopper, set before the events of Radio Silence.

So in this book we follow Frances, a studying machine who is a huge fangirl of a podcast (for a podcast? What is the proper grammar for “fangirl”). She then finds out that a total dweeb named Aled is the one making it, and they become friends and whatnot and are wildly successful and drama ensues or whatever. Aled has a lot of family drama. Things go down. So when the fragile trust between them is broken, Frances is caught between who she was and who she longs to be. Now Frances knows that she needs to confront her past. To confess why Carys really disappeared...Most importantly, this book is SO EFFORTLESSLY DIVERSE. Frances is bisexual. Aled is asexual and gay. (This is technically something that is revealed later on in the story, but I don’t like treating sexuality like a spoiler generally. Ace representation especially is SO RARE and v important. So I’m not going to, like, hide that from you guys. It’s not even a huge reveal. It’s just character growth and recognition and whatnot.) Frances is also half-Ethiopian and has a single mother, as does Aled, I think. It’s all just very good. All YA should be as easily inclusive as this. It makes for a much richer story.

Carol Last puts enormous pressure on her son's academic success and keeps him away from distractions. She was even harder on her daughter, who was not a good student. Seriously, this book gives so many thought-provoking impulses it’s hard to write it all into a summary, which only seems to emphasise my earlier statement of Oseman’s skill to capture the voice of a generation. People are complex, relationships are complicated and the way to your true self is paved with plenty of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. So just another ordinary day in the life of a young adult, right? ;-P BAFTA Television 2023: The Nominations". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. 16 March 2023 . Retrieved 22 March 2023.O'Toole, Scarlett (14 November 2022). "TV Choice Awards 2022 full winners list as Emmerdale triumphs after touching storyline". The Mirror Online . Retrieved 15 November 2022. it wasn't at all what i expected. i didn't know much about the plot going in, purposefully. but i didn't expect a book about a girl in her senior year of high school & a boy with an anonymous youtube channel to be so stark and poignant.

a b "Teenager's tale of angst wins six-figure deal | The Sunday Times". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 9 August 2016 . Retrieved 29 July 2016. I think everyone's a bit bored with boy-girl romances anyway. I think the world's had enouh of those, to be honest. Every element of this was just so incredibly appealing to me. The solid m/f friendship, the parents in the story, the relationship between Aled and Daniel. The podcast, Frances worry about school, the pressure on the kids regarding school, the teenagers hanging out, the little mystery element over who is February Friday, and what happened to Carys. it's like Alice cut out my brain, and like dig in through it , and wrote everything I have been thinking for like my entire lifetime ! The two central relationships in both of Oseman’s novels are platonic and while it may not seem particularly groundbreaking written down like that, it truly is and as a reader who is constantly fed passionate teenage romance, Oseman’s books are a breath of fresh air. “With YA books in general, romance is always a very big focus. In all kinds of really popular YA books - Twilight, The Hunger Games, John Green - romance is the most important thing in those books. It’s just so untrue to real life,” she says. “Romance to me and everyone I know… it’s not the centre of your world. I think it’s almost damaging to teenagers to tell them they should be looking for their soul mate at this age, it makes them feel bad for being single. It’s really terrible to be honest.”

Need Help?

Also, on a completely unrelated note— can we take a minute to appreciate Raine? Because I loved it whenever she showed up. She just said whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Incredible.