Book Review: The Silence of Six

Synopsis:

“WHAT IS THE SILENCE OF SIX, AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”

These are the last words uttered by 17-year-old Max Stein’s best friend Evan just moments before he kills himself after hacking into the live-streaming presidential debate at their high school.

Haunted by the unforgettable image of Evan’s death, Max’s entire world is upended as he suddenly finds himself the target of a corporate-government witch hunt. Fearing for his life and fighting for his own innocence, Max goes on the run with no one to trust and too many unanswered questions.

Max must dust off his own hacking skills and maneuver through the dangerous labyrinth of underground hacktivist networks, ever-shifting alliances and virtual identities–all the while hoping to find the truth behind the “Silence of Six” before it’s too late.

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Review

*I received a free copy of this book from Adaptive Books. This did not influence my review of this book in anyway. This is an honest review of the novel as I saw it. This novel is now on sale.*

To be honest I don’t read a lot of sci-fi books but The Silence of Six sounded interesting to me and gave me Mr. Robot vibes. However, I think my lack of really any knowledge about hacking and only a basic understanding of computer programming made it difficult for me to get into this novel. There were a lot of things that the main character, Max, did that I didn’t understand and had to just take the book’s word for it, which made this book a little unbelievable to me. Again, I don’t really know a lot about hacking but it felt like at the start of this novel Max had a really hard time trying to decode the mystery his best friend, Evan left behind for him. However, towards the end of the novel it seemed like everything just resolved itself pretty easily.

Like I said I think a lot of this book went over my head so maybe I missed something but I expected something more climatic from the ending that I just didn’t get. Confusing plot points aside I really liked the characters, particularly DoubleThink. You’ll have to read the book to know more about their personality because I refuse to spoil it but I thought that character was really well done and surprised me. I also liked Max a lot. I didn’t swoon over him or anything but he didn’t bug me in any particular way either.

Overall, I feel indifferent about this novel. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either. I just thought it was fine. I probably won’t reread it but I will read the sequel because I’m curious. Hopefully the next book is a bit more exciting.

Stars: