"Did my mother really not see that silence cannot wholly be a force for good? That has a protest it is as nuanced and flawed as anything else? Surely she anticipated the ill-intentioned voices that emerged from the silence?"

When Emilia Morris was 13, she watched her mother lead thousands of women to their deaths; after a decade of not speaking, Rachel Morris burnt herself alive, an act of "final silence". After her death, the Community springs up - a collective of thousands of women hoping to spread Rachel's message of listening and hearing one another. Now, an adult Emilia is ready to break her silence about her mother, and about the Collective.

The Silence Project is very much a novel of two halves - I flew threw the first half, which chronicles Emilia's early life and how she coped with the transformation of her mother into a cultish figure. I would have liked to have gotten a more detailed picture of the mother duahgter relationship before Rachel's silence - Rachel stops speaking when Emilia is 13. Nevertheless, the loss of maternal support causes enormous emotional pain for Emilia; pain that Hailey articulates well on the page. As Rachel's fame as leader of the Community grows, Emilia retreats from her - until the cataclysmic Event, where Rachel and her followers self-immolate.

Things go downhill from here in all respects.

Emilia's adult life working with the Community makes no sense from the get-go, and Hailey seems a little too eager to push past anything that might complicate her vision for the story. It makes zero sense that Emilia would go to work with this group; her actions within it make less sense again. What was a highly promising novel descends into chaos and muddle, especially when Emilia leaves the UK for the Congo. While there are a few compelling set-pieces here, overall it feels flat and confused.

I also really didn't like the preachy tone taken at the end of the novel and the twisting of fact to suit the narrative. Hailey, at one point, mentions the Catholic Church using celibacy as a means of population control and then covered it up. The horrific acts perpetrated by the Catholic Church worldwide were covered up, but it had nothing to do with population control; instead it was about abuse and harming young, vulnerable people. As an Irish person whose country is still grappling with the harm done by the Church, this rubbed me the wrong way, as did the last thread of the novel around euthenasia and what the old "owe" the young. I get the point the author was making but did not like how she went about it.

The Silence Project, for me, went from a page-turner to a slog, and its politics remain questionable. Some elements really worked - the Community were genuinely sinister in their actions and motivations, and the fallout after the Event made for harrowing and compelling reading. Unfortunately, none of it was enough to save this one for me.

I have just finished reading The Silence Project. I have been sitting quietly, trying to process everything I have read. I don’t remember reading anything quite like this previously. Within the very first few paragraphs, you know you will have your attention grabbed by this book. What I didn’t know was how thought provoking and raw this book would be.

*The following is NOT a spoiler*
The book starts with Emilia telling the reader how she watched her Mother die in front of her eyes. It wasn’t an accident or medical event, it wasn’t murder, it was a purposeful decision by her Mother, Rachel of Chalkham, to end her life; in a horrific, traumatic manner, very publicly. What follows, is an account of what led to The Event, and what follows because of The Event.

Very often fiction, unsurprisingly, feels like fiction. When reading, while immersed, you are very much aware, you are not in reality. This book is different, it feels incredibly real. The author has channeled the voice, and emotions, she gives to Emilie, so authentically. Emelie’s diary/reaction to Rachel’s diaries is so genuine, while the blending of events in the 2000’s, make this fiction feel extremely credible. This is heightened in the Afterword, when Emilie is considering how the world would look and feel, had The Community not existed.

There were several occasions that piqued my interest so much, I was going to Google, and I had to remind myself that this particular element was fiction. I think this is such a compliment to the author, Carole Hailey.
This unflinching, and sometimes brutal book demanded my full attention, and, I know this is a cliche; this book will stay with me.
Definitely 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Silence Project is a fictional novel which follows a cult narrative. Rachel Morris, Emilia's mother, moves out of the family home to a tent at the bottom of the garden on Emilia's 13th birthday and from this point on decides to never speak another word again. She proceeds to start a community on the premise of various political agendas, that quickly develops into a cult and expands internationally. When Rachel believes her message hasn't been heard, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice to be permanently silenced in death and burns herself alive in protest, along with thousands of her followers worldwide in a mass suicide known as the Event.
This book is written from Emilia's perspective on her life growing up, and the aftermath of the Event. The book has the addition of multimedia; including emails, news articles and most importantly the journals kept by her mother during her silence.
I completely connected with Emilia and even more so after she begins her own path in life, still deeply impacted by her mother's actions. I think the other significant characters to the plot are so well-developed, Carole Hailey really brought this story to life it felt at some points like I was reading true events. It is a heavily political book, which leaves the reader sincerely giving thought to the hard-hitting issues that are raised. I would actually recommend content warnings at the beginning of the book because there are some triggers that are not mentioned in the book description.
This is an incredibly captivating book and I'm shocked that it is Carole Hailey's debut novel, it is a definite success. I would be eager to read more titles by this author in the future.
4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Atlantic Books and Carole Hailey for sending an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review posted to Goodreads, Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones.com and Twitter.

I read a sample of this book in 2022 and it had all the hallmarks of a promising pageturner: a coming of age protagonist, a women-only cult and fiction written in the style of non-fiction. I was suitably intrigued and looked forward to reading the finished book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectations and I disliked it.

On Emilia Morris' 13th birthday, her mother Rachel decamps to the garden where she sets up a tent and takes a vow of silence, effectively cutting herself from everyone around her. Although we never get Rachel's perspective, we understand from Emilia that Rachel believes that nobody is listening to anyone, and by becoming totally silent, Rachel will be listening to those who cannot be heard and need to be heard.

Rachel's protest leads to hordes of women joining her at her camp, and to the set up of "the Community", a group of women committed to listening by being silent (in reality, a cult, though this isn't explored in any real detail).

Ultimately, Rachel's silence leads to "the Event" eight years later, where she and countless women worldwide self-immolate in an apparent act of protest. This isn't a spoiler as we are told about it in the early stages of the book.

There are so many elements of this book that did not work for me.

While the premise is interesting, I felt on reading the book that it was far more likely that Rachel suffered from chronic depression or schizophrenia. This isn't explored at all and feels like a wasted opportunity.

There is a lot of telling, no showing (ironic given it's about a silent cult). The non-fiction as fiction and the numerous fake footnotes and citations wore thin pretty quickly.

The entire story is told from Emilia's perspective, and her detachment from her mother from a very early age, and her horror at the Event, means that the second half of the story is just not in any way credible. Why on earth would Emilia then do what she does?

While the book starts off promising, it very quickly becomes repetitive. Silence as a metaphor is so heavy-handed throughout.

Emilia's actions and motivations, and her move to the Congo are explained away all too easily, and the love story lacked depth for me personally.

Most of all though, the worldwide support that flows to the Community in the aftermath of the Event felt totally unbelievable - I think it is far more likely that most people would have looked on Rachel as completely and utterly deranged, and the Community would have gone down in flames with her!

Lastly, the subject of euthanasia comes up in the latter third of the book and it seems to flow from the contraceptive injection storyline as some sort of natural consequence. The book began to feel like religious propaganda! (There is mention of the Catholic Church objecting to the Community, when the Community alleges that the Church historically used celibacy as a means of population control and then covered it up. I think it far more likely that the Church used celibacy as a means of obscuring its homophilic tendencies, and it has committed innumerable (and far worse) atrocities and cover ups over the years, so this was a curious insertion in the book.)

It takes a lot to write and publish a book, and I really do not like writing such a negative review, but this book was not for me. The author is a protegee of Bernardine Evaristo and this is a BBC Radio Book Club Pick so what do I know? If you were looking to read a book about a cult, this isn't one I'd recommend personally.

Very much a book of two halves! The premise is great and the first half raced along but I got stuck halfway through and this was a DNF for me. I will revisit it when I can focus on it properly as this deserves time dedicating to it.

This was a brilliant read and one of the first books I read this year. I’ve honestly not been sure how to put into words how I felt on reading this.

The story could so easily have gone in another direction, but instead the author takes the narrator down a similar path to that her mother took, by becoming involved in the movement she started. A definite recommendation from me.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy.

A dystopian novel for the current age, The Silence Project asks how far a daughter can allow her mother's legacy to go before she must tell the true story, no matter the consequences. Told in the form of an in-fiction non fiction novel, this is a stunning debut that holds up a dark mirror to the conundrums of today's world, and reminds us all of the ever present possibility of falling into the twisted logic and fanaticism that fuels The Community. An exploration of the power of silence, legacy, and cults of personality, The Silence Project blends fact and fiction so skillfully, it is hard to put down, and even harder to get out of your head.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

I struggled with this book, I found the premise intriguing but it all fell short for me.

Everyone felt disconnected and not at all authentic. The idea of listening to each other and the earth was something close to my heart but it didn’t inspire me to invest my heart into the story as a whole.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This is an extraordinary book. It blurs the lines between truth and a possible dystopian world. This is what makes it so unsettling, it could easily happen as a reaction to what we are doing to the planet. I cannot recommend this book enough it is astonishingly good.

This is an exceptional book. I was intrigued by the blurb and hooked after the first chapter. Initially the protagonists mum Rachel comes across as uncaring and not empathic. We see her cruelly joking with her daughter about the identity of her biological father, gorging herself on stories of large-scale human tragedies, and demanding her family runs around after her when she retreats in silence to her tent. However, when we later hear her reasons for doing so, in the form of 2 letters to her daughter, we see an entirely different sides to her. A principled woman, who was overwhelmed by the futility of life, wanted a kinder, fairer world for her child, and subsequently made a promise of silence, that she keeps to her dying day.
The readers feelings for Rachel change as we see different sides to her. The added element of the book within a book, told from her daughter’s perspective, means the reader never really gets to the core of who Rachel really is. We just endlessly peel off layers of selfishness, stoicism, depression, disassociation, anger, and solidarity, as we see her personality from different characters viewpoints. Her key message of listening to others in silence, in order to truly hear them, is also one that comes to be interpreted in many different ways, by many different people. The irony being that she is ultimately proved right, through a series of escalating violence in the second half of the novel. During this section, it is clear that anger is loud, and loud angry people do not listen.

You could look at this book from a feminist angle, as the community is a safe space for women. Women have battled for centuries for the right to be heard, and now they fight for the right to silence. This is threatened in scenes where men come marching into the community demanding to ‘rescue’ women who have not asked to be saved. Indeed, many of the counter protestors are “men with unspecific grudges against women.” The rights of women are also thrust to the foreground later on in the novel, when we learn that clinics giving informed contraceptive advice, are actually giving forced population management. The choices of women, and their personal autonomy, therefore crosses decades, continents and generations.
This could also be interpreted as a masterclass in dystopian literature. We’re drawn in by recognisable figures and events, before we split to an alternate reality. I particularly enjoyed the nod to Louis Theroux, when a ‘BBC documentary maker,’ of something called ‘Curious Collections,’ arrives at the community to interview its members. In fact, I shouted ‘It’s Louis,’ so loudly and enthusiastically, my dog leapt off my lap and ran barking to the door, convinced we had a visitor. The scene where protesting women are dragged away by overly violent police, shows similarities of the Sarah Everard vigil. Furthermore, having just watched Liz Truss become PM by default, the words in response to Gordon Brown’s takeover from Tony Blair are astonishingly prophetic. One of the women comments, “was it fair for the PM to be someone who hasn’t stood in a general election, as leader of the party? …Who hasn’t actually listened to the people they represent.”
Carole Hailey appears to have a crystal ball into the future, and it’s therefore with whole-hearted belief I recognised her vision of the future as chillingly prophetic. I’m convinced you could also write an entire essay on the Socialism ‘vs’ Capitalism in this book. After the community becomes popular following ‘The Event,’ rich men and wealthy businesses align themselves with it. From this point on it’s a beacon of light to any and all with a narcissistic personality, delusions of grandeur, and a greed for money and power. Capitalism kills the community, and tramples over its founding principles, as a dark future of ‘senicide’ beckons. There are clearly so many layers of this book, I could go on forever raving about it! But one final note on the fires that run like a thread through the book. The symbolism of the fire throughout the novel links to the multiplicity of meanings and interpretations. For some cultures fire is a symbol of divinity, for others one of superiority and control. For some it stands for knowledge and wisdom; for others it represents martyrdom or rebirth. I very much appreciated this being shown on the covers – just beautifully poetic. I’ll shut up now and summarise or we’ll be here all day!
So, in summary, The Silence Project is exceptionally clever, remarkably planned, and perfectly executed. It’s like the best kind of pick and mix, where the more you delve the more delights you find. My only criticism is that I’d love to know what happens next, but perhaps we’re meant to imagine that ourselves (although secretly I’m hoping for a sequel!) I will absolutely read anything and everything Carole Hailey writes in future, regardless of content

The Silence Project is a unique novel which is scarily believable – you could easily think this was a true account as it seamlessly blends real-life world events with fiction.

Emilia’s mother, Rachel, moved out of the family pub into the garden on Emilia’s thirteenth birthday, and never speaks again. She founded an organisation (some may say cult): the ‘community’, and after eight years of demonstrations, protests, and most importantly silence, Rachel (along with thousands of other members all over the world) killed herself.

The Silence Project is told from Emilia’s perspective as she writes a ‘tell-all’ book about her experiences growing up with her mother until her death and after – in fact, the book IS Emilia’s ‘tell-all’ book so as the reader, we’re reading the autobiography Emilia is writing.

I found it absorbing and addictive reading as we follow her life and struggles dealing with her mother’s legacy. I felt conflicting emotions reading it – I really felt for Emilia but, though I understood her mother was trying to make a statement and create change in the world, the way she went about it felt so cruel to her family. The story takes you on a real rollercoaster of emotions as we follow Emilia’s own reactions to her mother’s behaviour – and the reaction from the rest of the world. You can really imagine people reacting in the ways they did, and the community’s actions sometimes echo real-life events.

However, I felt it tailed off a bit after Rachel’s death. Emilia’s work with Community afterwards felt a bit long and dragged a bit for me, meaning I lost a bit of interest in it as we entered the last third of the book. It was still a really great read, but I think the real addictive, gripping element of the storyline cooled off a bit as Rachel died, unfortunately. Still, I would really recommend this book to anyone fancying a thought-provoking original and authentic-feeling read.

An interesting plot, Emilia write about her mother Rachael who camped at the bottom of the garden and never spoke again. Good characters a slow burner but interesting.
I received this book from Altantic books and Netgalley for a review.

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

This dystopian themed book follows Emilia Morris, who has decided to write and publish a memoir about her mother Rachel Morris.

Rachel Morris is known by many due to starting the Community and then ending her life in a dramatic and shocking way, afterwards known as the ‘Event’.

Even though this shocking day has been written about many times, Emilia wishes to put her own story out there, even with the threats she is receiving.

What will Emilia reveal about the Community? What happens to the Community after the ‘Event’?

This dystopian story is a debut by the author, and I loved the sound of the description. I must admit I found that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped I would as I found it a bit too slow and found some parts to drag on a bit. That doesn’t mean others wouldn’t enjoy, it just not my cup of tea.

The story is written as a memoir with excerpts in between of articles, letters etc. that Emilia has received to help her with her writing her book.

I found the after story quite interesting about where the Community was taken after Rachel was not in charge, it is scary how these kind of good intentions, turn into something completely different.

Overall, a dystopian themed memoir style read where a daughter shows the life of her mother in the Community.

I have been looking forward to reading this, after viewing a sampler last year, this is such an interesting plot! It almost felt like a true story!

I enjoyed reading about before and after The Event and seeing Emilia thoughts and her take on her mothers story

Very strange reading a storywhich is written as though it isfact but in fasct it is fiction. I teresting concept. I enjoyed the story which is something which could happen, given the medias influence. I magining something like that happenning and the implications is horrendous. Some really good characters that brought the story to life

It's an intriguing book that starts with a bang and drags in the middle. A woman like Rachel can be inspiring but I would be very wary of the follower as you always hear what you want to hear in the silence.
I liked Emilia and I felt for her because it's hard to grow up in the shadow of a myth.
There's a lot to love in this book, there's some very slow parts. There's fleshed out characters and a great dystopic world building.
Thought provoking and full of food for relfections.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and couldn't wait to read it. It started off well, but then it fell flat. I found I didn't really care about the characters and skim read the rest of the book.

On Emilia Morris' 13th birthday, her mother, Rachel, moves into a tent in the backyard and goes silent - never to speak again. Eight years later, Rachel sets herself on fire (known as 'The Event') with her followers or members of 'The Community.' Many years later, Emilia writes a book based on her mother's diaries and this is that book.

The premise of this novel is intriguing, and this book made me ask myself a lot of questions: What kind of power and control will we allow from organizations/corporations? Do money and power really rule the world? What does it mean to truly listen to other people? If an organization does a lot of good, can we ignore the bad?

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I was glued to it for the first half, but it got to be a bit too far-fetched for me in the second half. I tend to believe that people are inherently good and we're all trying to do our best, so it was hard to believe that an organization like The Community could rise to a position of such global power and influence. Also, for such serious topics (reproductive coercion, encouraging suicide, etc.) I thought the novel lacked depth and character development.

More than anything, I really wanted to hear first-hand from Emilia. I mean, don't we all want to know what's going on inside the brain of the cult leader?! What was she thinking? Did she have a grand plan for The Community? Why did she go silent? Did she see The Community as a success story before her death? Unfortunately, her diary entries didn't answer these questions, so we were left to speculate.

Despite my critique, I think this is a "win" for a debut novel, and I'm glad I read it. It's based on a clever concept and is a cautionary tale for our future. If you're a fan of cult books or the obscure, this one's for you!

I enjoyed the premise of this book and felt this carried on well throughout the story. I particularly liked the first part outlining the effect Rachel's silence had on her family- Emilia in particular- and the way women were drawn to the movement. I'm not sure I learnt anything new however as there have been many books both fiction and non fiction around the subject of cults. I also felt that in some parts the author spent too much time getting over a point particularly in the Congo, thus making the section unnecessarily long.
My main comment however is that I found it gratuitously and distressingly graphic to the point of nightmares.
thank you to netgalley and Atlantic Books for an advance copy of this book

This was a brilliant book to read and the cover as well as the synopsis definitely caught my eye. This is a dystopian novel set in the near future. Rachel, a wife and mother decides to go to the bottom of the garden to live, she doesn't tell anyone why she has done this as she has decided to stop speaking. She decides that she is going to listen to the world around her and while this sounds like a good thing to do she has walked out on her daughter's 13th Birthday.

The story flits back and forth from the perspective of the daughter, Emilia. There are also accounts in the form of emails from various other people mentioned in the story. I do have to remember that this is a work of fiction but it does read quite alarmingly as an actual account of something that may have happened.

While this story is about Emilia, it is also much more profound than that. It tells of how a simple action from Rachel gradually gathers momentum, attention and publicity. All this is going on while Emilia is growing up as a teen than as an adult. In the future setting the author brings a different turn than I expected, but it does actually work well within the story.

This could so easily be seen as a work of fact, and there are many factual events that are included. Trying to work out or remember what has happened against the fictional events is something that made me shudder at times. In a world where the population is rising, where people are starving, and the climate is changing there are groups that are standing up and making their voices heard. This is where I think this story is clever as it is the absence of a voice that makes the loudest noise.

The beginning half of the book deals with life, how people are being drawn to Rachel and how her simple act of not talking but listening to others gains momentum. This gradually leads to an Event that shocks the world and for a moment the world is silent together in horror. After the Event, the story takes on a more sinister and troubling but also very understandable turn. The Event has given the Community as it is referred to a momentum that cannot be stopped. While I am not going to say much more about this, it does actually feel that it could happen and this is the shocking part of the story.
I have noticed that this book has many reviews and that readers are divided. For me, it worked incredibly well and I adored it. It was a story that I thought about when I wasn't reading it and one that drew me straight back into it when I picked it up again.

I enjoyed this one a lot, it comes across as being a possibility in a world that is full of negativity at the moment and I can understand the thought behind the positivity and hope that the author expresses through her silent character. The role of the daughter being caught up in her mum's actions is given in a very convincing way and this made it a very readable story.

If you are a fan of dystopian fiction then this is one that may interest you. I for one am very glad I spotted this book and read it and I would definitely recommend it as it is very thought-provoking.