The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton

The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton

The Quality of Silence is advertised as a mystery, but the main focus of the novel is on the family dynamics between Ruby, her mother, and her father. In order to show this, the events of the story were dragged out much further than they should have been. This greatly affected the end of the book when even though they found Ruby's father and figured out who had killed the whole town, it was never completely resolved. The family was happily back together, but they were stuck in the freezing wilderness of Alaska, with only a hope of rescue. There is a suggestion that help is on the way, but it isn't clear. Reading this as a mystery novel, I was disappointed by the lack of action and resolution.
Ruby is 10 years old, and deaf, which makes her a very interesting character to write from the perspective of. But writing from the perspective of a young child is a difficult thing to do, and I'm not sure Rosamund Lupton was able to do it correctly. For a 10 year old who also has an impairment that would affect her learning to some degree, Ruby seems to know too much - some things that I'm not even sure adults would know. I mean, maybe she's a really intelligent girl, but it wasn't really believable to me. It could have worked if there was more background about her.
I did enjoy this book, however, despite the issues that I had with it.

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**I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review