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The Silence Project

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About this listen

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.

©2023 Carole Hailey (P)2023 Atlantic Books Ltd and W. F. Howes Ltd Contemporary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction
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A gripping read, it felt like a book of two part, before and after the event,

A book of two parts

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🧡 This is both a searingly smart dystopia and the deconstruction of a truly dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. Prepare to seethe at someone’s else’s mother.

💚 What makes the dystopian aspect smart is the clever weaving-in of real events with a speculative alternate history. It breaks down the proliferation of a catastrophic cult and looks at the dissonance between an ideal and reality.
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SOUNDBITE

🎧 A gripping and charmingly performed audiobook that I not only found accessible, but utterly moreish.

This Mother-Daughter Dynamic Speaks Volumes

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I found myself gasping out loud in parts and continually drawing parallelles with so many other institutions in real life. Hailey has layered this story beautifully and originally. A thorough work of literary fiction 🙌

The originality is outstanding

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The narrator sounded so bored I kept apologizing to her in my head for putting her through it. The story was interesting but somehow not convincing - the bit where every song about Rachel was a huge hit, documentaries, photos won awards, everything that was about her won an award, or broke a record etc - it over-egged the pudding, it wasn't credible. I could never quite believe the pervasiveness of the cult as a believable proposition.

Narrator sounded so bored I kept apologizing

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