Cameron Kelly Rosenblum's 'The Sharp Edge of Silence' is brutal, disturbing and necessary, shining a light on misogyny and sexual assault rife in the institutions of the powerful. Lycroft Phelps is a prestigious private school and easy route into the Ivy League for the generations of wealthy students from elite families who attend. We view the new school year from the point of view of three students: beautiful Charlotte, a dancer with an enviably rich and handsome boyfriend, Max, a scholarship student who is being seduced by the advantages which could be his in the life of an athlete, and Quinn who is reeling from an experience last summer she would rather hide, despite it being a haunting trauma. We follow the events of the new school year complete with secret societies, athletic rivalries and the debauched behaviour of the rich and powerful.

I found this book a tough but important read. Quinn's story is something alarmingly real for any woman who has experienced any sort of unwanted advances from a man. Rosenblum does not hold back on the grotesque portrayal of the corruption of the elite who believe they are entitled to anything they lay claim to, including women's bodies. What is even more disturbing is the young age of the students involved in this story, the rotten core present even in the younger generations. The reveals get darker and more disturbing as the narrative progresses, at some stages the reader being teased with the 'good' characteristics of Quinn's rapist and the potential for lovely Max to be drawn into this disgusting, exploitative world. The moral lines are blurred and the reader longs for the world to be righted with villains punished and the heroes finding justice. Rosenblum highlights the messiness of reality and does not hold back in her portrayal of toxic masculinity and the corruption of the rich and powerful.

Overall, this is a fantastic read. Hard, yes, but powerful. One of my best reads of 2022. 5 stars,

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

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So err, content guidance. All the content guidance for (this list is non-exhaustive) sexual abuse, reaction to and recovery from sexual abuse, PTSD, rape culture, etc. Also spoilers.

<blockquote> An asymmetric moon rises from the hills behind Lake Edith. It tosses pieces of itself onto the water, and the lake wears them like sequins. You don’t need to make yourself beautiful for this place, Edith, I say in my head. You’re too good for them.</blockquote>

This book is both incredibly good and incredibly difficult to read. As a piece of writing—as a nuanced, sophisticated, and moving exploration of its subject, I very much recommend it. But I also encourage people to take care of themselves above and beyond, because, holy shit, does this hit hard. I mean, I chose very deliberately to read this, the content guidance is very clear, and I was super prepared for the subject matter. And I still feel a bit hollowed out by it, although I should emphasise that the book never felt graphic or gratuitous to me. The assault itself is rendered in a kind of broken poetry—the narrative shattering around the indescribability of an experience like that—in a way that is both abstract and yet captures the emotion of the moment. And mostly the story covers the aftermath of what has happened. It just happens to do so very vividly, which is its own particular kind of painful.

Anyway, the three POV characters in The Sharp Edge of Silence are students at ye traditional privilege-saturated dark academia style boarding school. Charlotte Foresley is middle class, a talented ballerina and choreographer, and currently dating Sebastian McNeilly, one of the school’s golden boys. Maxwell Hannigan-Loffler is an extremely academically gifted scholarship student. And, finally, there’s Quinn (Q) Walsh, a sixth-generation legacy student whose family’s history is entwined with that of school itself. As the book opens, Q is stalking the grounds of Lycroft Phelps, full of pain and anger, trying to steal a gun from school security so she can shoot Colin Pearce—the boy who sexually assaulted her at a dance last term. Charlotte, meanwhile, is aspiring win a chorography competition and fretting about not being good enough to keep the attention of a boy like Seb McNeilly. And Max, a short, socially devalued nerd, is being invited to cox for the school’s prestigious rowing team, an invitation that will change the trajectory of his future at Lycroft Phelps.

To get my own nerdy notes out of the way first, something I really appreciated about this setup is the way the three stories seem disconnected at first but gradually come together in the second half of the book, offering us three different perspectives on Q, what happened to her, and the events that follow. More satisfyingly still, the voices of the three protagonists are exceptionally well-realised: sufficiently distinct that if you opened the book at any point, you would recognise whose POV you were in. I love that shit. But I also appreciated how flawed, and in quite specific ways, each of the characters was allowed to be. Q is so angry and self-destructive that, for all its completely understandable, it’s almost unbearable. Charlotte is insecure in ways that are equally understandable, but also make her self-absorbed and, on one occasion, spiteful. Max, meanwhile, has that nerdy smart-but-stupid thing going on. He’s well-meaning, but he has a bunch of slightly Reddity theories regarding the kind of men women are attracted to (he calls it the Quantitative Hotness Correlativity Theory – oh my dude, no) and it’s, once again, understandable and inevitable why he would have his head so thoroughly turned by a brush with popularity and belonging.

The main thing I have to say about The Sharp Edge of Silence, though, is that it struck me (and, as ever, we’re talking about deeply personal and subjective issues here, I am talking only about my own reactions) is an incredibly clever take on its subject matter. And I realise ‘clever’ sounds a bit damning when you’re talking about something as emotive and complicated as sexual abuse, but I really admired every choice this book too around its subject matter, and the nuance it allowed to flourish.

For example, Q is a self-aware and politically alert student—she mentions #MeToo, for example—as well as being extremely (and I do mean extremely) privileged. Her incredibly wealthy grandfather actually sits on the board of governors for the school. Although her mother is dead, her family are loving and supportive, wealth in their own right, and influential enough to be able to seek advice from a top lawyer when she tells them what happened. There’s a tendency, I’ve found, with stories that deal with, y’know, *this*, especially those set at educational instalments to emphasise social and class privilege as well as … err …rape culture privilege? I’m thinking something like The Riot Club (aka Posh) or Anatomy of a Scandal, the situation nearly always involves a man of high social standing and woman without those advantages. But I think, by making different choices about Q’s access to sources of conventional power and protection, what The Sharp Edge of Silence is able to explore in quite a devastating way is the stark reality that … urgh I’m sorry to write this so horribly but … if a man decides to r*pe you, chances are he can r*pe you. And all the power, wealth, privilege and uplifting social media movements in the world are unlikely to stop him. That is not, by the way, to diminish the impact of those things, especially when it comes broader cultural changes: but when it comes to one girl and one boy at a party, the calculus can be brutally simple. In case it’s not clear, I really felt for Q, throughout. Her journey from traumatised to a path of recovery was profoundly credible to me, and all the more so for the times when she’s so lost in the immediacy of what happened to her that access to conventional sources source of help (therapy, friends, family, love) simply couldn’t be enough.

Charlotte and Max’s stories are kind of a necessary emotional break from what’s going on with Q, but they also offer context to her journey in really intriguing ways. With Charlotte we get to see Sebastian (one of the hyper-privileged rowing team, and close fried of Colin Pearce, who assaulted Q) in a gentler context. And with Max we get to seeing the rowing team at their best, as a group of young men who are equally as capable of teamwork, commitment, loyalty and kindness as they are of … err. Degrading, objectifying and assaulting women. There’s a kind of tragedy to it, almost. I don’t say that in defence of anything that they do, or to detract from Q’s story, but the rowing team could have been portrayed as monsters. Instead, they’re portrayed as human and, somehow, that’s even worse. Because they do what they do *knowingly*. Because they could be better. And while the book is very clear that r*ping someone, locker room talk, and having a mildly problematic theory about who hot girls date are not remotely equivalent, and yet they are part of the same culture (part of rape culture in fact). This doesn’t make them equally dangerous, nor does it imply that one inevitably leaves to the others, but it does remind us that the crime comes from the culture and stopping one will not change the other.

All of which said, it’s kind of also important that not everything is terrible in this book. While it can’t (shouldn’t) really offer Q unilateral healing, it can (and does) offer her hope: a steady path to recovery, supported by professionals and loved ones. And while it is understanding of her anger, it ultimately recognises the futility of revenge-fuelled fantasies. This isn’t to say there is no resolution on the issue of Colin Pearce and the rowing team, because there is and it's as satisfying a one that can be offered without the book losing its grounding in realism. But the closest thing that Q can get to a happy ending for this particular experience is reaching a point where what happens to Colin Pearce is as no longer part of her story. And the fact that the book is able to get her there, without taking any shortcuts, diminishing the complexity of its themes, or surrendering to cliched expectations regarding how we represent either abusers or abuse survivors, is its own triumph. For both Q and, I think, the author.

A well written and paced book that kept me hooked throughout. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review.

A prestigious school has more than its fair share of entitled, moneyed students along with a few scholarship young people fighting for their place in the pecking order.
Charlotte can’t imagine why she has been chosen by Seb, worshipped by many other girls for his looks and athletic prowess.
Max, on a scholarship, is content being a nerd and all-round nice guy.
But Q has returned after the holiday to face her demons after being raped by Colin Pearce and not letting on to anyone at school. She is obsessed by trying to acquire the gun possessed by security in order to shoot Pearce. Her torment is visceral and brilliantly written but heartbreaking.
Max finds himself on the rowing team, more for his size than anything, and is convinced it will lift his social standing at school. What he is unaware of is the secret society he now finds himself part of and the sheer toxicity of its culture.
But once the girls find out they are determined to bring it down with public humiliation of all involved.
Although hiding what she has experienced is a common occurrence among victims of sexual assault, the lack of action to report the crime for law enforcement and opinions of a family lawyer that Q would have difficulty bring a case against the perpetrator is disappointing and not a message of hope to others.

The Sharp Edge of Silence examines toxic masculinity and its impact from the perspectives of those it affects.
Set in the privileged Lycroft School, students are accustomed to being asked who they want to be. Their alumni take up powerful positions in society, which makes this a read that you can’t help but notice.
Our story focuses on a number of students, among them Quinn who has returned to school having been raped by one of the star athletes at the end of the previous year. We also experience life at school through the eyes of her roommate, girlfriend of one of the rowers implicated, a scholarship student inducted into the rowing team and his best friend. There are also snippets on interactions between key staff which allows us to examine this culture from a number of positions.
Although we know from early on that Quinn was raped, the book opens by focusing on her unusual behaviour upon returning to school. You’d think people would notice and they do, eventually, but my goodness is she put through the wringer before things start to get done.
Having read the synopsis of this book I was under the impression that the focus would be firmly rooted on the reaction to the event. It is, but in a much more drawn-out way than you might think. This is not a bad thing, just quite different to what I predicted, which took a while to adjust to.
Once we move into the closing stages of the book, we see more than one or two students examining their assumptions. The way the lid is blown on this sordid experience is nothing short of spectacular. Though there are repercussions for the key player involved it frustrated me no end that we never gain any insight into his mind after the truth comes out. While this might be the grim reality, part of me wants more hope from our fictional explorations of such behaviours.
I’m hugely grateful to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this before publication, and I can’t wait to see how it’s received upon publication next year.

Thanks to Bonnier Books UK and NetGalley for this eARC!

This book centers heavily around the impact that rape and rape culture has, so please heed this as a trigger warning, and note that my review will mention such topics as I see fit to do so.

Though the subject matter of this one is undeniably difficult, and it is not an easy read by any means, the author tackles the story with a lot of heart and care. This is the sort of story that most women can relate to in some way, whether they themselves have been victim to sexual assault or not. The idea of privileged men being protected over those that they hurt, because of their 'promising futures' and the lack of desire for those in charge to take responsibility or control of matters like this when brought to their attention are all to real in today's society. This book tells the horrors of that, through the eyes of three main characters.

Q, a girl who is hurting immensely; angry and disappearing, unable to cope with what has happened to her, and having to face the boy who did it on a daily basis in their prestigious private school. Charlotte, an older teen whose boyfriend is one of the most eligible bachelors on campus, who is faced with the harsh truth that even the boys who want to do good don't always live up to the task. And then Max - a boy who is easily manipulated into the lifestyle of richer, stronger, far more popular boys than he himself is, but who ultimately does the right things after making a few mistakes along the way.

There are some really impactful moments within the story. It is so easy to understand where Q is coming from, even when she makes decisions that might seem utterly unbelievable to some - fantasizing about killing the boy who hurt her, to the extent of acquiring a weapon to do so... it might be difficult to imagine for some. For me, I could understand her completely. It's heavy, it's dark, but it's written well and the story is important; it's also the kind that keeps you enthralled, wanting to read on even when you as a reader are angry and hurt by the going's on. You want an outcome that is satisfactory.

And the outcome to this story is, mostly, satisfactory. It is also very real and honest - I'd go so far as to suggest that it's perhaps less realistic, in the sense that justice is served to some extent here, when in reality it so often isn't.

I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, given the subject matter - it doesn't feel like the right way to describe my experience. But I couldn't put it down, and I would recommend it.

THE SHARP EDGE OF SILENCE by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum honestly wasn’t what I had expected it to be. And I liked that about it.

Quinn wants revenge on the person who sexually assaulted her. Charlotte wants to dance the night away and finally, finally, ask the guy she’s seeing if they’re actually dating. Max just wants to be known. We follow the three of them as they battle their individual problems and see how their stories weave together as they uncover a hidden truth about the school that could rock their boat and potentially upturn it. The three of them battle their morals, fight to get revenge on the people who deserve it, and try to stay standing.

This book balances the need for revenge and the need to be stronger than the person who wronged you very well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for revenge fiction where the main character raises hell on the rapist, like in Hannah Capin’s Foul is Fair. But this took a slightly different approach, even though from the very first chapter, the reader feels like this is about to end bloody.

I liked how this book tackles mental health. It was honest, and blunt, and allowed the reader to really feel what the characters were going through. Quinn’s emotions and anger lend well to the story, and to me she definitely felt like a fully fleshed out character. I loved how while she refused to let her rapist win, she was also vulnerable and scared, rather than blinded by rage. Rosenblum handled this topic with delicate hands and so much care that I was rooting for Quinn to get the help she needed, and I was empathising with her until her very last page.

The prose in this book matched well with the characters, and I personally feel that Quinn’s obsession with music plus the intertwinement of small and long sentences allows the reader to understand Quinn’s emotional instability and the need to lean on something like music to keep her going throughout the day.

I felt like the resolution at the end was slightly rushed and didn’t have as big of an effort as was foreshadowed in the earlier chapters. It was slightly unsatisfying because instead of a bang, it really just felt more like a pop. But maybe that’s just me.

Overall, this book was extremely enjoyable, and I flew through it. I’m fairly certain it’s taken me out of a reading slump. I can’t wait for its release and I’m on my way to pre-order my own copy. I can’t wait to see what Rosenblum does next.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

A really enjoyable read that grabbed me in right away and didn't let me go. The characters were so well developed and I loved them, I have taken them to my heart. This book is so good with so much going on and so many themes running throughout the story, it wouldn't be out of place on an academic syllabus

Heartbreakingly well written, this book will draw you in and chew you out

The 3 main characters are luring you into their heads and everything about this story works!

Highly recommend

Wow. I am completely speechless. This was a phenomenal and gut-wrenching read, and so nuanced in its thematic writing style. I have to applaud Rosenblum for writing such a raw story and being willing enough to share parts of herself with us readers. It’s the hardest thing in the world to allow other people to see the depths of your trauma and soul like Rosenblum bared to us. It’s a book I won’t be forgetting that’s for sure.

It was the cover with “boys will be boys” but with parts of the phrase crossed through that immediately grabbed my attention. Then upon reading the synopsis which included the phrase “tackles the contagious nature of toxic masculinity at an elite boarding school” while exploring rape culture, I *had* to read this book. One of my favourite books of all time is Mandy McGinnis’ “The Female of the Species”, and the description of “The Sharp Edge of Silence” felt very reminiscent of it in terms of its themes. So, that was another reason I was immediately drawn to the book.

First and foremost, the writing style was so poignant. The way Q, one of our three narrating characters, was characterised and how her inner thoughts were portrayed so viscerally was impeccable. She was without a doubt, the shining star of this book. She was my anchor. She made me heart ache and soar. She was so raw and wonderful. Her anger was a living breathing thing that pulsed throughout the whole book— she wouldn’t let me forget how angry she was and I didn’t want her to. Her anger was my anger. Her helplessness was my helplessness. She was an extension of myself and so many other girls who have been in similar circumstances. Reading the last few lines, my smile was so big as I got the privilege to watch her slowly begin her journey of healing and happiness. I adored her so much. One of my favourite book characters in a long time. Unforgettable.

Charlotte and Max are our other two narrators. For the first half of the book, I will say I found the three alternating narrators... odd. It meant there were lulls in the narrative at times and I wasn’t quite sure where things were going. But I loved watching how all three of their perspectives ultimately overlapped and converged. It was incredibly satisfying to read and in the end, Max’s and Charlotte’s points of view had the desired impact Rosenblum wanted. Q’s story was the more explicitly brutal result of rape culture and toxic masculinity, while Max and Charlotte’s were far more subtle and eye-opening, exemplifying how being silent is complicit. Turning the other way is complicit. Shrugging it off is complicit.

Rosenblum just nailed this.

And I can’t express how happy I am that this story ended on a hopeful note. I actually started cheering and grinning so big by the final few chapters. I was sad but I finished this book a bit lighter and more hopeful than I expected.

Everyone should read this book. It’s truly a must-read. Rosenblum has written a phenomenal book here. Go read it! I literally recommend this to everyone, to all ages and genders because this is a topic everyone needs educating about.