Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (3991)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
    Me Cheeta

    Me Cheeta

    James Lever

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    The incredible, moving and hilarious story of Cheeta the Chimp, simian star of the big screen, on a...

40x40

ClareR (5779 KP) rated The Silence Project in Books

Mar 21, 2023  
The Silence Project
The Silence Project
Carole Hailey | 2023 | Dystopia, Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Silence Project grabbed me, sucked me in and I raced through it, desperate to know what was going to happen next.

What a fascinating concept. Rachel Morris moves in to a tent at the bottom of her pub garden and never speaks again. Other women are drawn to her cause, and a community is born. One that seems to worship Rachel and her message. It sounded an awful lot like a cult to me. And when Rachel and thousands of her followers burn themselves on the pyres that they built themselves, the cult of The Community is truly born.

This book is written as a memoir by Rachel’s daughter, Emilia. Unsurprisingly, she misses her mother at the same time as resenting her. I thought this was really well done: Emilia loses her mother the day that she pitches her tent.

I think this would make such a good book club book - there’s so much to discuss. The concept of The Community, and the fact that it had clearly become something entirely different to Rachel’s original idea - whatever that really was. But due to her silence, Rachel was never fully able to say exactly what it was that she wanted for the future of her movement. I wondered whether her silence was rational; was she depressed? Her silence meant that others could put words into her mouth, surely?

Was Rachel selfish or selfless? Would we think differently if she had been a man? That’s very much left to the reader to decide. What really disappointed me though, is that a group of women, The Community, after Rachel’s death, becomes corrupted. They convince everyone that they know best and bring in some pretty outrageous policies: enforced contraception, euthanasia that’s geared towards making a profit for The Community. They have their fingers in many pies and many governments.

I’ve got to admit, this disappointed me a little. There was always the hope that women would be different - but it turns out that they’re the same as everyone else.

That said, this is a really hard-hitting book that gave me so much to think about - and I loved it.