The Silence Of Six Book Review

The Silence of Six
Silence of six, a book written my E.C. Myers, discusses the adventures, or rather the misadventures of max, a high school soccer player who dabbles in hacking. This book has almost no background information, or character build-up. Although it is easy to figure out exactly what is happening, it can be difficult to understand why the things that happen are happening, in the beginning. I thought this book was a good read, and it was also a quick read, seeing as how I am an unusually slow reader, and it took me about 5 days to get through this three-hundred fifty-page book. Myers uses a lot of rather vivid imagery, while it is not quite as vivid as Stephan
king, who could spend several pages just talking about the color of the pen the secretary was holding. I really enjoyed this book, which is rare, because I don’t consider myself the “reader” kind of person. This book was an easy read, with vivid imagery, with little to no character buildup. I came across this book when I was going to see a movie at the AMC in Highland Village, Texas. I went to see the new Jason Borne movie, however I was about half an hour early. So, I decided to walk around Barnes and Nobel, which I did regularly, because my parents are avid readers. And I was walking the isles, when I saw this awfully attractive girl, so of course I went full stalker mode and began looking at books around where she was browsing. I picked one book about the civil war with zombies, and I wasn’t very intrigued, then I picked up The Silence of Six, and began to so-so read the back, more just paying attention to what the girl was doing, but even just the back of this book managed to pull my attention away from the girl. After I finished reading the back, and looked up to see that the girl I was planning on making small talk with was gone, then I checked my watch only to realize I was nearly late to my movie. So I quickly grabbed the book, checked out, and went to the movie. Time management was never a forte of mine. When I was younger my middle school library was sorted by “reading level” which was a system they deigned to accommodate for the wide variety of people who were using the library, this was kindergarten through 8th grade.
I personally felt that this book was exactly on my “reading level” seeing as how there were few words that I had to look up, but it was still able to challenge my vocabulary. This book was an easy read, because of its word choice, however, when you compare this books word choice to Stephen Kings Cujo. The word choice could be considered childish, because King chooses to use a wide, and advanced vocabulary, while Myers uses a more simple, easy to read
vocabulary. What is the difference between bland imagery, and vivid imagery? The difference is simple, for example: the red car drove past with great speed. Would be an example of bland or flat imagery, whereas; the fiery red car zoomed past us with enough speed to knock me onto my heels. The particular diction used by Myers appeals to me, because it combines the use of incredible descriptiveness, with a clear and concise overall diction. Making this book and easy read, while still giving the reader a clear image of what is happening in their head. being able to maintain an image for the reader, while being able to continue a storyline, is something that many writers struggle with. Or rather some readers struggle to find writers with a balance that the reader enjoys. I found Myers was the perfect balance for me. However different people prefer different balances of descriptiveness, and story progression. Character build-up, and background information is something that in older fiction was considered a necessity, but in modern times we do not have time to sit and read about the why of our characters, and we just skip right to the storyline.
In the silence of six we see this being implemented. Myers jumps right into the story, however he does give clues and hints along the way, allowing the reader to sort of connect the dots and somewhat understand who is doing what, and why. Personally I felt more hooked into the story with it skipping the character background, because it forced me to continue reading to figure out, just exactly what was going, what characters were doing, and why. So by not sitting and explain who every character is, what their background is, and what their thought process was Myers is able to pull readers in, and force them to do the work in figuring out who everyone is while also forcing them to figure out what was going
on. This book was a great read, it was not a difficult read, and it was surprisingly descriptive while using concise but advanced vocabulary. The silence of the six, again, follows max through his discoveries into why his best friend hacked into the presidential debate that was taking place at their school, to ask the candidates two simple questions, “what was the silence of the six.” And “what are you going to do about it.” Then pulling a gun and ending his life on camera in front of his peers, and in front of his best friend, max. this book is great read, and I would recommend it to anyone who is remotely interested in computers, and does not mind a quick read.