Most books I can review immediately with no problems. However, this is one that took me a while. I had to process what I felt about it. There is a lot that's going on in here in this book, and it's worth a good read.

It's hard to really talk about this book because there are a lot of things that I want to say about it but they would be spoilers. It's an intense book. It's incredibly sad in places, very happy in others. It's complex and has so many layers that you will have to unpack to figure out what's going on.

The Silver Cage filled my heart and my mind and made me feel all kinds of things. It's incredibly well-written and is haunting. I'm hoping that the next book will come out soon. ( )

Gut wrenching

I’m not sure how to review this book. The story of people who meet, fall in love and one of them has tremendous guilt and hatred for himself for it. It is a slow paced story and the end was profound, it’s message to me was to love each other. ( )

I never expected this book to affect me the way it has. I have no words for a review right now.

Update: 4/4/18
I have decided not to write a review at this time. I purchased this book and read it on my own time and will do the same with the second one when it releases. I will then, if I can manage to find what to say, review both at the same time. For now, this is how I feel about this book:

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I'm going to do my best to make this as spoilerfree as I can. But it's still slightly spoilerish.

2.5/5 stars.



I have a hard time rating this book. I feel like everyone has joined the party and I'm sitting lonely on the couch watching everyone having a blast. I just don't get it. I don't think this book is very sad and I didn't find the ending as heartbreaking as everyone seems to.



Well, that's a bit harsh Eric. I'm not a cold hearted bitch... my problem was with the book and its depth. Or rather, lack thereof.

Why?
Because while the writing is actually quite good, the book never manages to go beneath the surface. I never felt their connection or their pain or their loss. It was as if it was all from far away and you're just looking in on their lives like a creeper with a telescope. You never really get 'there' in their heads and hearts.

Now bear with me... this is my very first MM read. I have absolutely nothing agains MM - wether in real life or fictional - but I just didn't find their 'amazing' connection in this book very believable. It missed depth, angst, conflict and passion. I read the note by the author at the end and I realise that it was a deliberate choice, but in my opinion it was the wrong choice.
Because of this, the story felt like it was all about their desire to have sex and nothing deeper. Telling us they love each other isn't enough. You need to show it and we need to feel it, to make it believable.

It's just absolutely not believable - to me anyway- that a heterosexual male all of a sudden develops (sexual) feelings for another man for the first time ever, while having absolutely zero inner debate about it and going along like it's just who he is now and it's never discussed again or thought of. I needed this inner debate to make the story realistic and come alive. Once the two of them got closer and together, things were superfucial, fast and skipped over. There were some steamy scenes and then they are in love in practically living together. I just missed the development. It felt so rushed and shallow.
As I said, this is my first MM book, therefore I have zero books to compare this one with and I'm not sure what the 'standard' is, in this genre.

I think the 'warning' is a bit much, this book is not that shocking. If you are extremely sensitive to the subjects mentioned in the warning, you should listen to it. But otherwise there is hardly anything in it that I find shocking. Most of this happens 'off-page'.

I have a lack of tolerance for religion. I don't want to start a whole debate. To each their own. I just don't like it and I don't want to have much to do with it. So the religious parts in this book were... tedious to read. But that's personal to me. If I had known that it would be so present in this book, I might have been inclined to skip this one.

The ending was not a suprise. I was expecting it from the beginning and it just felt extremely rushed.

The sad part is that - like I said before - the writing is really good and for the first half of this book I was very interested in it and I wanted to see where it went. Sadly the things I mentioned above just didn't make this a winner for me.



But I seem to be in the minority yet again, so be sure to give this one a go yourself and I'm curious to see what you thought ( )

"Despair is as deadly as cancer. It eats at the spirit, which generates our will to live."

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