The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is ultimately a story of overriding love; a love that means everything and for which a wife will risk everything. There is the love that a devoted couple share and then the love that encompasses their daughter and the love that she has for her parents. It's a story of the differing nature of love, what love means to different people. It's a story of what happens when that love is compromised.
Ruby is deaf and uses a combination of sign language and a computer app to 'talk'. Her dad, Matt, a wildlife photographer, is happy for her to sign but mum Yasmin, a physicist, would prefer her to use her 'words'. Yasmin doesn't want Ruby to feel different and wants her to stay in mainstream school where Ruby clearly struggles whilst Matt is happy to let Ruby go to a school for deaf children where she will fit in. Despite conflicting approaches to dealing with Ruby's deafness, both parents only have Ruby's best interests at heart.
Throughout this story there are flashbacks to Yasmin's past, her family and when she and Matt met, which help to explain a little why Yasmin is like she is but one fact is prevalent throughout the book - her love for Matt and Ruby; so it is no surprise that when she and Ruby embark on a trip to Alaska to pay Matt a visit on a photography trip and they learn that there has been a tragedy in the village Matt was staying in and that he is dead, Yasmin refuses to believe it and is determined to get there to find Matt.
Embarking on a roadtrip that no one outside of Alaska could possibly imagine, Yasmin and Ruby find themselves part of a bigger picture, a conspiracy that could have very serious results for them.
It's a week since I finished this book and I am still unsure what to make of it. I enjoyed learning about Ruby's deafness and the way she copes with it, I thought she was an engaging and resourceful child and I loved the way she describes how she see words and how she reads a lot into expression and mannerisms but when you put that together with the events in Alaska I am a bit lost as to what point is being made, if any. I absolutely adored Lupton's last two novels and have waited eagerly for this latest book but I do feel that there was something missing. The writing was superb as ever; the characters of Ruby and Yasmin were excellently portrayed; I could see into their heads and 'see' them as people. The descriptions of the vast, frozen landscapes were, in all sense of the word, chilling; majestically, dangerously beautiful. Then we come to the storyline about the 'fracking' and it could have been so much more. In itself it was fascinating and I felt that I learnt a good deal about fracking but it didn't fit with the issue of Ruby's deafness and the all conquering love between the family of three. Matt just happened to be there when a tragedy happened which led to Ruby and Yasmin getting involved but actually there was no connection between the events other than coincidence and for me, it didn't really gel. Yes, the overwhelming sense of love was there in the need to find Matt; the danger was palpable but in the end, what did it all mean? It didn't seem to tie together; Ruby and her parents issues with school, the conflict over how she communicates, embarking on a dangerous journey and a fracking scandal.
Still a highly readable book with moments of nail-biting tension and it does do justice to familial love; perhaps I have read too much into it but I am still confused by it a week later.