Spoilery Book Reviews

The Silence Project by Carole Hailey

**Warning**

This book contains a mass suicide event, themes involving a cult and actions with not great morality. If you are sensitive to any of these topics, give reading this one a skip.

Back of the book

My mother died as she had lived: in complete silence.

On Emilia Morris's thirteenth birthday, her mother Rachel moves into a tent at the bottom of their garden. From that day on, she never says another word. Inspired by her vow of silence, other women join her and together they build the Community. Eight years later, Rachel and thousands of her followers around the world burn themselves to death.

In the aftermath of what comes to be known as the Event, the Community's global influence quickly grows. As a result, the whole world has an opinion about Rachel – whether they see her as a callous monster or a heroic martyr – but Emilia has never voiced hers publicly. Until now.

When she publishes her own account of her mother's life in a memoir called The Silence Project, Emilia also decides to reveal just how sinister the Community has become. In the process, she steps out of Rachel's shadow once and for all, so that her own voice may finally be heard.

My thoughts.

Written as if a memoir, The Silence Project dares to blur the lines between fiction and reality, grounding itself with mentions of real tragedies, supplemented with fictional ones. The global problems it cites are all too real, but it challenges our moral compass in the way they are tackled. This tale was hauntingly believable for today's current social climate.

I loved this grim tale. I knew to dread the occurrence of the Event but to my surprise that happened only halfway through the book. I was left wondering what kind of conclusion or climax could top 21,000 women self immolating. In some ways the conclusion did pale in comparison to the Event, but it left me reeling in other ways. The formation of the Community is plausible, although the breadth and scope of their influence is beyond what any other cult has achieved.

This story fills me with questions and none of them have easy or correct answers. It's like a workout for your brain mulling them over and over. If I ever wrote a book this is in the vein of what I would want it to be, asking the hard questions of humanity and crises we currently face. Overpopulation is an issue, and is a driving factor of all our other global problems, but can we have a solution that is morally okay? Furthermore, can a morally sound solution provide adequate impact? Our current society is not equal despite what we tout or try, and the solutions to global problems also may not promote equality. Is it possible to have solutions that promote equality? What morals are we willing to abandon for the greater good? Whose version of greater good?

I don't understand why this book is not a bigger phenomenon, shouted about on the internet for the audacity to tackle our current challenges in such an inflammatory way. Mostly I am horrified at myself for considering ways to justify that senicide is not so awful. It is awful, but so is world hunger, poverty and displacement due to climate change making areas inhospitable. I love pondering this moral dilemma, asking the hypothetical, which is worse? A quote from the Witcher gives one view: "Evil is evil... Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. If I have to choose between evils... I prefer to not choose at all." Inaction is also a choice, and possibly the most damaging one so far.

The only minor critique I have is pacing got slow after the Event because I couldn't imagine anything that could horrifically top that, but I kept reading in hopes that it would surprise me with something. Including email formatted text in the book was a risky move because I've seen it and hated it, but in this novel the additions worked and didn't overwhelm the story.

I highly recommend a read but not for the faint of heart. This book is very real, tackling real issues and offering solutions with questionable morals. Despite the dark topics, this novel engaged me intellectually more than emotionally, perhaps due to the detached way most things are explained and recounted. I didn't want to cry over the atrocities enacted, but rather ponder the moral 'rightness' of the course of action. I want to shout about this book from the rooftops and make everyone practice a little more silence and little more listening.

TL:DR

A memoir of an inside view of a realistic cult that uses its power and influence to tackle global overpopulation, in morally unsound ways.