Silver by Olivia Levez [BOOK REVIEW]

admin

May 27, 2025

0 Views 0

SaveSavedRemoved 0

About The Book:

Pages: 419

Genre: Young Adult, YA, Fiction, Science Fiction

Publisher: Hot Key Books

Format I read it in: Uncorrected Proof

Rating: ★★★

Silver has been trained since birth for her collect data on the humans to test if Earth is viable for her home ship, Charybdis, to colonise. The only rules are that she must feed back the data she collects to the ship, and at all times follow the To touch is agony. To feel is pain.

So when Silver inhabits the body of a young woman and infiltrates the house she is staying in, she must learn to pass as a human without revealing her true identity. But she isn’t prepared for how the humans will get under her skin. And she definitely isn’t prepared for Finch, the boy she starts to fall for. Especially when he touches her – and it doesn’t hurt.

It is not how Charybdis said it would be.

Have they been lying all along?

Conflicted by the war between her growing feelings for Finch and her allegiance to her ship, Silver must decide who to stand by and who to betray.

My Thoughts:

I was very intrigued by the story of Silver. She is an alien and is sent to Earth for a mission – to collect data on humans and test if Earth is viable for her mother ship, Charybdis, to colonise. All her life, she has been taught that she must follow the Mantra, a set of rules that her ship stands by. To stay away from humans. To not touch them, for touch is agony, and to feel is pain.

When Silver joins a family as a pet-sitter, she has to inherit the body of the young Polish girl to do so. The more time she spends with the family, the more human she becomes. The book is also set around Christmas time, so she feels extra included and excited about all the festivities. She starts to develop a crush for Finch, and when they touch by accident, she expects to feel pain. But instead, all she can feel is warmth and funny feelings about this boy, which is extremely confusing to her.

Every so often, Silver has to go back to the mothership to “shield”. When she shields, the founders gather all the data she has collected. They are not impressed with her, as she has gotten too close to the humans and she is also starting to defy them by visiting much less frequently.

The story of Silver is very fast paced and addictive.

I read it in two days. But I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. There were a lot of discrepancies with the characters. Stella, for example, kept coming in and out of the picture. It felt convinient, when it was needed to fit the story and plot. Silver’s character had many flaws too. She showed empathy, but then was brutal the next second. For example the scene where she tells Finch the truth about his dad.

Also, there are some things that didn’t add up with her powers. On page 94, she scanned “Brave New World” in a second, and in the next chapters she does that with other books too. But on page 122, it takes her “seventy-seven minutes” to watch some cooking videos. Surely, if she had an ability to inhabit humans, scan books in seconds, morph into anything, she can also process cooking videos at a crazy speed?

For some reason, I couldn’t relax enough to enjoy the book. As a whole, I really loved the idea behind it and the story about the world/the ship/Vortex/Founders. But personally feel that it may have been slightly poorly executed. I would still recommend it if you are after a unique alien story with a romance twist to it.

About the Author:

Olivia Levez divides her time between teaching English and binge-writing in her caravan by the sea. Olivia likes hula-hooping, yoga and real ale, but not at the same time. She lives in Worcestershire with her husband, two sons and her real life Dog, Basil.