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Silence is Goldfish

Silence is Goldfish

by Annabel Pitcher

Fifteen-year-old Tess Turner is happiest away from the action. She longs for life on the periphery; it’s quieter there. But Tess’s parents, outgoing and confident, would love for their only child to grow up to be as social and popular as they are. And there’s nothing wrong with that — at least, not until Tess discovers that her dad is not her biological father. She was conceived via sperm donor and, as if finding this out wasn’t bad enough, reading on a blog that “dad” struggled to love his “alien newborn” shatters her world.

Tess doesn’t mean to become a mute. At first, she’s just too shocked to speak, overcome by the betrayal. As she sees how her refusal to speak frustrates her parents’ expectations of her, Tess begins to enjoy the silence. She can finally shut out “the overbearing din of human existence” and becomes determined to find out who her real father is. But when Tess feels the most alone, suffocated by the silence she’s created, she learns that no matter how hard she pushes her family away, they will always be there to pull her back from the edge.


Ages: Teen
ISBN: 9780316370745
Price: $17.99
Published by: Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers

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