By: Neha N., Grade 9
Alice Oseman is one of my favorite authors these days. She's most well-known for her graphic novel series “Heartstopper” but as I discovered, her talents reach far beyond that series. She’s also written a few novels, which are all amazing. This list is going to rank three of these novels: Solitaire, Radio Silence, and Loveless.
3. Radio Silence
The premise of Radio Silence is that when studious, quiet head girl Frances Janvier who loves making fan art gets contacted by the anonymous creator of her favorite podcast, she feels on top of the world. But once they start working together to create new episodes for the podcast, the anonymous creator’s identity is revealed and everything starts to go wrong. What I love about this novel is the intensity and drama, especially during the climax when the podcaster’s identity is revealed. I was caught in the action as Frances scrambles to solve the problem as she uncovers even darker secrets. I was on the edge of my seat while reading this and following Frances, but there was a little bit of a lack of relatability. I feel like the whole idea that Frances just happened to meet her favorite podcaster and they just happened to live in the same neighborhood is a little unrealistic, but in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t really looking for a super realistic read anyway. Even accounting for this unlikely string of coincidences, I would still recommend this read.
2. Loveless
Loveless is probably the outlier of the three novels, because there are no cameos of different books’ protagonists in this one (at least none that I caught!). In Radio Silence, there are cameos from Michael and Tori in Solitaire, as well as Nick and Charlie from Heartstopper, and in Solitaire there are Frances Janvier cameos, as well as Nick and Charlie appearing several times. I think this is because Loveless is from the point of view of first-year university students while the other two are about high schoolers, which is a fresh change. The book follows freshman Georgia Warr as she starts to find out her true identity as aromantic-asexual after trying several times to date and find love. I find Georgia’s story interesting and engaging of course, but the real highlight of the book was the side story between two of Georgia’s friends, Pip and Rooney as they discover their feelings for each other as Georgia acts as a wingman for both of them. I think Loveless is an adorable coming-of-age read and I would recommend it to anyone into teen fiction just based on Rooney and Pip’s side story alone.
1. Solitaire
Solitaire is Alice Oseman’s debut novel, and I love it the most. It’s from the point of view of Victoria Spring, a name one might recognize from the Heartstopper series. In this book, Tori, who hates school, notices a blogger who goes by the name of “Solitaire” starting to play pranks on their school. These pranks start out small and harmless, but then evolve into dangerous stunts that no one seems to want to stop. Tori takes it upon herself to fix it, and aided by a new friend, Michael, they try to figure out who’s behind the blog and stop them once and for all. This one is my favorite out of the three because Tori is often a very relatable character, through her distaste for schoolwork and her tendency to choose surfing the internet over hanging out with her friends, but there is still enough action and excitement to keep the reader hooked. If you were to choose one out of the three novels I wrote about today, I’d recommend Solitaire.
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