Heard in Silence - Edited by Kaytlin Phillips - ★★.¾

EDITOR: Kaytlin Phillips

GENRE: YA Anthology.

RATING: 2.7 stars.

In a Nutshell: An indie YA collection, with each story having a deaf character as the main protagonist. An interesting mix of stories that were mostly decent for me. Nice variety of genres though.

We are so attuned to having background noise in our life that we don’t even realise how noisy the world is until it goes silent. It’s almost as if we are deaf to the sounds of nature. However, imagine having not to hear any sound, any time. A permanent silence, resulting either from hearing loss or by being born deaf. How will such characters react to the world around them? Are there any sounds in their silence? Do their other senses try to compensate for the missing one? Some of the answers to these questions can be found in this story collection.

The introductory note by editor Kaytlin Phillips reveals how this anthology came into being. While researching her debut novel that had a deaf MC, she discovered that there were very few novels that explored deaf characters. (I too can’t think of any book I have read that has deaf characters centre-stage, though I do have Lynne Kelly’s ‘Song for a Whale’ on my reading agenda.) As such, Phillips held a contest for her writer friends to pen stories with deaf characters. This anthology is a compilation of the best entries from that contest.

The thirteen writers who have contributed to this collection are young (thereby fitting into and writing for the YA age group), Christian (thereby ensuring a strong undertone of the Christian faith in a few of these stories), and female (thereby ensuring that their women characters are powerful even in their silence. Most stories have female protagonists.)

While the stories cater to the YA target audience, their genres are quite distinct, ranging from fantasy to romance to historical fiction. I did appreciate the diverse genres, but the writing was a bit too simplistic for my tastes. This might not be an issue for readers who enjoy YA reading more than I do.

The biggest appeal to me for picking up this anthology was the deafness of the main characters. While we have seen varied types of inclusivity being made a part of contemporary fiction, physical disabilities still don’t get much of page space, especially in anthologies. So the idea of reading about deaf protagonists warmed my heart.

However, the implementation was a bit too straightforward for my liking. I would have preferred a greater range in the emotional response and the circumstances of the characters. But a majority of the stories had a common pattern: hopelessness leading to hope. I anticipated some stories to have a character just diagnosed with hearing loss and trying to make sense of the new silence. But there is only one story that focusses on this angle, and to be frank, I didn’t like the writing style in the same. One of the stories felt like it fit into some other fictional universe I wasn’t aware of. None of the stories surprised me with unexpected turns or unusual story angles. Basically, this is a safe collection, but it doesn’t push the envelope in any way except for the deafness of the main characters.

As always, I rated the stories individually, and a great chunk of the book came bang in the middle of my rating scale. That is to say, I liked a majority of the stories, but none blew me away, and none annoyed me as well. I didn’t read or rate the last title as it was a poem, and I don’t trust my (missing) poetic bone to make head or tails of the lyrical excellence of a poetic work. For the twelve works I thus read, my ratings range fell between 2 stars to 3.5 stars. A couple of the stories would have touched the four star mark had they given me more at the end.

These were my favourites from this set, each with 3.5 stars:

🌺 Invisible - Saraina Whitney – Invisibility works on two levels: either you feel invisible or you try to be invisible. Which category does our protagonist fall into? One of the better stories about handling inner conflicts and feelings of inadequacy.

🌺 Silent Companions - Jaiden Phillips – Friendship doesn’t need chatter to become stronger. This is more like a middle-grade story, but it reflects emotions well.

🌺 Stormy, with a Chance of Logan - Lillian Keith – One of the longer stories in the collection, and hence more comprehensive in terms of build-up, suspense, and resolution.

🌺 The Girl in the Pages - Grace A. Johnson – The only reason this didn’t go higher on my rating scale was that it was a bit too cheesy at the end. Otherwise, the story had an interesting plot and a nice development.

All in all, I love the intent behind this collection. As I mentioned earlier, we need anthologies with more diverse representation, and this is a great step in the right direction. I just wish the stories had been somewhat more complex for me to dig into. YA readers might enjoy this anthology better. Nevertheless, I compliment the young authors on their inclusive writing, and wish them the very best for their future projects.

2.7 stars, based on the average of my ratings for the individual stories.

My thanks to the Sisters Three team for providing me with a complimentary copy of “Heard in Silence” at my request. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.