Review: A remarkable standout in the world of LGBT/YA novels
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
All YA/LGBT books are about the same thing; the trials of being a gay teenager. Mostly they stick to the same terrain, made interesting (or not) by the individual author’s skill as a writer and storyteller. But sometimes an author steps outside the already uncomfortable zone of teenage life and transcends the ordinary.Sara Alva’s remarkable YA novel Silent is the story of Alex, a Mexican fifteen year old from Watts in LA. Barely holding onto his meager existence, neglected by his mother and abused by her live-in boyfriend, Alex projects a tough faade to the world. He doesn’t care about his classes, his teachers, or the girls who find him so attractive. He avoids gangs, but he also avoids any real emotional connection, except with his mother.And then a pair of shoes triggers the downfall of Alex’s house of cards, and he finds himself in a group home run by two formidable black sisters.And there he also finds Sebastian, a pretty blond mute with almond-shaped eyes and no history. Seb, dismissed as a “retard” by the other boys in the house, becomes the object of Alex’s desperate need for friendship.When another disaster separates him from Seb, Alex begins to come to grips with his true self, and to scrabble to become a mature, independent responsible young man. The fact that he does this in an inappropriate teenage way only makes us yearn to hold him and guide him. But this is Alex’s journey, and we can only watch helplessly from the sidelines.There is some tough stuff in this book, because Alva takes us across racial and class lines into a world unfamiliar to suburban white America. But she does it with an empathetic gentleness that allows us to be both appalled at Alex’s not-always intelligent choices, while also understanding him and loving him more with every page. She lets us see the good in Alex as it emerges from the shadows of his ghetto upbringing and focuses on the one boy more in need of love and protection than he himself is.For all the anxiety Alva generates, this book is not really harrowing. She makes Alex’s voice (and those of all the people in the book) authentic and believable. While good parents are definitely absent from the narrative, there are adults to take on parental roles, who we come to appreciate as Alex does.Silent is a moving, emotionally on-target story. One of the best YA/LGBT books I’ve read.