When We Were Silent

The premise sounded interesting, so I thought, why not?

Why not, indeed.

The main character and her classmates are close to my age, yet nothing these characters say or do (other than listening to Duran Duran) seemed mid-80s to me. In fact, there was little differentiation between the way characters spoke.

“When We Were Silent” was inspired by the 1990's true story of a swimming coach who abused the children he was supposed to be training. The book is about that story and how the silence of the abused isn't just from fear, but also from other people keeping you silent.
If a book isn't well-written, any subject matter, no matter how important, is going your way fall flat. And that's what happened here.