REVIEW: Karen Malena - Sound of Silence

Genre: Dystopian

Publisher: Tuxedo & Beans

Publication Date: 15^th June 2015

Pages: 124

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Sound of Silence was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Karen Malena in exchange for an honest review. This is said review.

I suspect you may not have heard of Karen Malena if you are coming straight into this review. I hadn’t heard of Karen before she contacted me to talk about a review for Sound of Silence and the possibility of doing an interview for Confessions. If you want to learn more about Karen then head on over here, where you will find an in depth interview with her to find everything you need to know.

This is not Karen’s normal genre of writing so I was interested to see what she could do with this dystopian type of story and thought I should give it a chance.

Was I right?

The year is 2050. After years of terrorist attacks across the world, the government needed to come up with a way to police spoken, and written communication, to try and curb these attacks.

In an extreme measure, speaking aloud has been outlawed for some years. All newly born children have implants put in their voice boxes to make sure they cannot speak. All adults must not under any circumstances speak out loud or the consequences could be dire.

Ray Warren comes to the aid of an old woman who falls over. When she thanks him, he makes a fatal mistake and tells her she is welcome. Amidst gasps from the people surrounding him, he runs. He knows he has nowhere to hide and must make some careful decisions to protect his family. Or does he take a stand against the tyranny?

INTERVIEW: Karen Malena: Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of Confessions of a Reviewers’ interview with Karen Malena.

In tonight’s section, Karen starts by answering some specific questions on her newest book Sound of Silence, continues to talk about her writing and life in general and tackles The Ten Confessions.

It’s only Tuesday but go grab something nice like a pizza and a beer, sit back and relax, but mostly……enjoy!

COAR - Moving on to Sound of Silence, where did the inspiration for this one come from?

KM - Sitting in a restaurant watching a family of four, each engrossed on some electronic device in front of them, none of them talking or making eye contact with one another, is how I came up with the idea. What if speaking became outlawed and a punishable crime? Would we miss it then? Would we risk everything to hear our child’s voice even one more time? And who would make such a law? It would have to be someone hugely popular and well-loved. He would have to prove to the public that it was in their best interest to put the edict of silence into order, for their protection so to speak. It had to be a politician.

INTERVIEW: Karen Malena: Part One

Welcome to Part One of Confessions of a Reviewers’ interview with a lovely lady that many of you will maybe not know of, Karen Malena.

If you don’t know a lot, or indeed anything, about Karen then read on. In this interview, Karen was kind enough to take the time out to give us some detailed and, inspiration inducing answers to all the questions I threw at her.

In Part One, tonight, we find out some general information about Karen and her writing and inspirations. In Part Two, tomorrow night, Karen will give us some specifics on her new book, Sound of Silence and she also takes on the mighty Ten Confessions.

On night three as always, I will be posting my review of Sound of Silence.

Nothing left to say other than go grab some nibbles and a drink and sit back, but most of all……enjoy!

COAR - So tell everyone a bit about yourself in general?

KM - First of all, I’d like to thank Nev for having me as a guest on his blog. (Nev blushes) It’s extremely fun to connect with other bloggers, and I found that his questions are refreshing and different. So, something about myself. . . Reading, gardening, taking long walks in the woods, writing and spending time with my loud Italian family are all of my favorite things.