I want more narratives where friendship is enough. I’m tired of narratives where girl-meets-boy and they become friends and then they become “more than friends”. Frances and Aled do not fall “in love”, and I love it. Let’s start with the most obvious: Frances and Aled. Indeed, there are so many great relationships in this book, I just want to break them down one by one.

It’s a love story because of Frances and her mom, and in spite of Aled and Carys’ mom. It’s a love story because of Aled and Daniel’s complicated relationship. This is still a love story, though, because Frances does love Aled, platonically, and he loves her back. And Oseman would have won me over if that were the only thing I liked about this book. This is a love story, but it’s not a love story. So Frances finds solace in an anonymous YouTube podcast called Universe City. She isn’t feeling all that connected to her school friends-they see her as a “study machine” more than the art-loving nerd she is. In real life, of course, things are more complicated. Head Girl at her school, on paper she is a star student: she has her UCAS statement all done, is on track to go to Cambridge, and just needs to ace these AS-level exams. Most importantly, this book has such strong portrayals of friendships, both platonic and romantic, and I love it so much. I’d heard some good things about this book from people whose opinions I trust, yet still … I wasn’t expecting it to be this good. With Radio Silence, Alice Oseman accomplishes the literary equivalent of knocking me over with a feather.

Radio silence alice oseman online