Book Review :: Silence is Goldfish, by Annabel Pitcher

Silence is Goldfish by Annabel Pitcher
ISBN: 9781780620022
Published by Hachette NZ
on 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Pages: 363
Source: Hachette Publishing NZ
Find at Hachette NZ
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My name is Tess Turner - at least, that's what I've always been told.

I have a voice but it isn't mine. It used to say things so I'd fit in, to please my parents, to please my teachers. It used to tell the universe I was something I wasn't. It lied.

It never occurred to me that everyone else was lying too. But the words that really hurt weren't the lies: it was six hundred and seventeen words of truth that turned my world upside down.

Words scare me, the lies and the truth, so I decided to stop using them.

I am Pluto. Silent. Inaccessible. Billions of miles away from everything I thought I knew.

Tessie-T has never really felt she fitted in and after what she read that night on her father's blog she knows for certain that she never will. How she deals with her discovery makes an entirely riveting, heart-breaking story told through Tess's eyes as she tries to find her place in the world.

Last updated on 6 April 2022

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What is Silence is Goldfish about?

Tess has never felt that she fit in that well. What made it all worse was the short paragraph of a blog post that said her father wasn’t her biological father. And worse than that? Her father wrote it.

Tess’ whole world is shaken. She no longer knows who she is, who her father is, who her mother is for never telling her. Instead of confronting the situation, she dives into silence, where only the voice of a small goldfish-shaped torch converses with her, and is the only person she talks to.

Her parents seek immediate help, her teachers have to deal with this silent girl all of a sudden, and her best (and only) friend slips away. Tess is determined to find out who her real father is, so when Mr. Richardson shows up at school, with the same colouring and features as Tess, she can’t help but wonder.

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My thoughts on Silence is Goldfish

This was your typical YA novel about a girl trying to find her place in the world … with an imaginary friend in the form of a goldfish. So perhaps not quite your typical YA book. Tess is a teenage girl, so along with the drama over the words she saw written, she is bullied at school, she has to work hard in her classes, and she has boy dilemmas. Not only that but her form teacher is sending notes with her to Mr Richardson and Tess refuses to think that there’s something anything less than savoury going on there.

“You might not be a lion, Tess. That’s fine. Neither am I. But we’re still cats, aren’t we? Just because we don’t roar, doesn’t mean we have to be silent.”

This book was okay, though I didn’t really like Tess as the book went on. I got frustrated at her for not talking and not just asking her parents about the whole issue, for talking to an inanimate object, and her pushing her belief that Mr Richardson might be her father too far. While I didn’t really like that she had an imaginary friend, Mr Goldfish, as she calls him, who acts as her own Jiminy Cricket, and speaks what she needs to hear when she needs to hear it.

It is a decent story about a young girl finding herself, confronting her fears, and eventually standing up, standing strong, even in the face of great difficulty. If you’re after a short, fun, teenage-problem-filled book with quirky characters and a talking fish, pick up Silence is Goldfish. While I won’t be reading it again, you might really enjoy it!

Have you read Silence is Goldfish? What did you think? 

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I received this book for free from Hachette Publishing NZ in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.