Radio Silence

t’s official. I love Alice Oseman. 

I don’t know if I want to be her or if I want to be her best friend. It’s a bit of both to be honest, especially considering that she’s twenty-six and has written six novels. Just...what a life. How admirable. 

The first Alice Oseman book I read was a lovely read by the name of Loveless. That book punched me in the gut in the most hard hitting of ways, painful, but a good painful. Radio Silence didn’t hit me quite as a hard, but I still found it to be a very compelling and relatable read. 

Radio Silence, Oseman’s second novel, largely features the burgeoning friendship between Frances Janvier, quietly nerdy and school-obsessed Head Girl and Aled Last, Head Boy from a neighboring school with a whisper of a voice. 

If you think this tale is a romantic one, it’s not. I’ve noticed that with many of Oseman’s books, romance doesn’t seem to the main event. Or at least, not with the two that I’ve read so far. 

Aled secretly runs a podcast called Universe City which has been Frances’ secret obsession and only source of happiness from the mountainous piles of homework and school obligations for the last three years. She even runs her own tumblr blog which is dedicated to Universe City fanart and sketches, one of the only things that brings her true enjoyment in her mostly mundane life. 

The two coincidentally collide and as they unravel each other, their two worlds, real and fictional-combine. What comes after is a story of loss, misunderstandings, forgiveness, and not giving up, especially as mistakes are made, blame is dished out, and Aled moves away for University, something that he’s always dreamed of and always wanted...right?

This novel, while definitely focusing on friendship and fandom culture, also has a lot of commentary on the nature of school, the value of grades, and the purpose of higher education. As a high school teacher myself, I agreed with a lot of the critiques and social commentary surrounding education. Going to college and university is often shoved down kids’ throats, often to their detriment. 

College isn’t for everyone. A plan that many students don’t know about or discover too late. Too often I see high school seniors simply going to college because they were told it was “what they were supposed to do.”

It’s wrong. I agree with Alice Oseman on that. 

Other than the social commentary, the book is very fluid and easy-to-read. I devoured it in about three days. It is unabashedly British, a fact that simultaneously amused me and piqued my interest when discussing things like A levels. 

This novel inherently came across like reading fanfiction to me for some reason, even though it is very much an original work. It’s something in the way Oseman writes, in the way the dialogue is presented and the chapters are broken up. 

Frankly, this book reminded me of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl except infinitely less cliched and honestly more enjoyable. 

It’s almost like the book was made for me. All the inside jokes, all the allusions to different fandoms-Harry Potter, Spirited Away, Back to the Future, the Sims, etc the list is endless. It’s like Alice Oseman knows everything I like and makes references to it throughout her novel as if to say Ey? You see this? Cool right?

It’s so amazing it’s almost eerie. 

It makes me wonder if there are other nerdy people out there that like the exact same things and read Radio Silence with glee and delight or if they read the book and are left feeling confused and missing the punchline. 

I wonder. 

That being said, the book is very enjoyable for a multitude of reasons. I love that Oseman doesn’t necessarily focus on romance. More often than not, her books feature friendships as the main relationship and it's so refreshing and tantalizing to read how these relationships are just as important and all-consuming as a romantic one can be.

 I also feel like every time I read an Oseman book it leaves me untethered. It’s like Oseman thinks of the most cliched plot points and then just chooses the opposite. Every time. 

It’s hard to explain, but every time I thought the book was going in one direction and expecting it to be predictable it would go in a complete opposite and often leaving me thrilled with the change and also charmed at the simplicity that Oseman was circumventing stereotypes left and right. 

The only criticism I have, and it’s not really a criticism, at least not yet, is that all of Oseman’s main characters feel very much the same to be so far. Not the side characters, the side characters are great, Raine, Carys, and Daniel in Radio Silence are all fleshed out and unique, as are the side characters from Loveless, but I feel like the main protagonist, the first person perspective that we are constantly in the mind of-that comes across a bit of rinse-and-repeat to me. 

Both of the main female characters from Loveless and Radio Silence were both quiet, nerdy, non-party-like girls who would rather watch Youtube in bed than go out to a bar. Both were self-deprecating, both didn’t have a lot of friends, both had cool moms. I’m sure the similarities continue, but to me this just seems like the character Alice Oseman likes to write. 

Or maybe this is Alice Oseman and these female characters are representative of her. 

Who knows. 

Again, as I’ve only read two of her six novels, this could be a very wrong assessment and if it is, I will find out very soon when I read the read of Oseman’s works.

 I did appreciate the increased diversity of the Radio Silence characters compared to Loveless, especially as Frances was half-white and half-Ethiopian, but the close resemblance in personalities struck me as something to keep an eye out for as a possible criticism. 

Only time and reading more of Oseman’s books will tell. 

Recommendation: If you’re nerdy you’ll like this book. This novel caters to nerdy people. Like fanfiction? This is for you. Love Tumblr and the Tumblr community? Look no further. Love fandom culture as a whole? Here you go. This book affirms and almost makes you proud to be a nerd. Embrace your inner nerdiness people and read Radio Silence. If you liked Fangirl, you will love Radio Silence. 

Score: 8/10