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Author: Kylie Fornasier

Series: None

Rating: 5 stars

Genre: Contemporary

Synopsis: I hate the label Selective Mutism – as if I choose not to speak, like a child who refuses to eat broccoli. I’ve used up every dandelion wish since I was ten wishing for the power to speak whenever I want to. I’m starting to wonder if there are enough dandelions.

After losing her best friend that night, Piper Rhodes changes schools, determined that her final year will be different. She will be different. Then she meets West: school captain, star soccer player, the boy everyone talks about. Despite her fear of losing everything all over again, Piper falls in love – and West with her – without Piper ever speaking one word to him. But will it last?

How I got this book: Bought

Release Date: May 2, 2016

The Short Version:

This was beautiful and amazing.

WHY is this author not more popular?

The Long Version:

Having read Kylie Fornasier’s previous book Masquerade, I decided that I would need to read any book this woman wrote.

And I am happy to say that The Things I Didn’t Say did NOT disappoint.

This book was so beautiful. Piper was an amazing character. She has selective mutism, which basically means that no matter how much she may want to, she cannot speak in front of people she doesn’t know.

Which frustrates her, because she has so much to say.

And it was all presented so wonderfully. One of my favourite things was definitely the focus on Piper’s family and friends. It wasn’t all about West (though he also did feature quite a bit).

Piper’s selective mutism does not mean that she cannot speak at all. In fact she speaks quite a bit around her family of three younger siblings and two loving (if sometimes misunderstanding) parents. Her parents don’t always understand exactly what Piper goes through with her selective mutism, but they always support her and encourage her to go to support groups.

Aside from her family, Piper’s friends are another large part of the novel. Again, these people are really supportive of her, and they don’t try to force her to speak.

And then there’s West. He likes Piper, and he is YET ANOTHER character who is super amazing and supportive. He isn’t perfect, and occasionally he gets frustrated when Piper doesn’t say anything, but when he realises that he’s made a mistake, he doesn’t try to defend himself or anything like that. He apologizes.

It was such a nice change to have a book full of characters that were supportive and wonderful and it wasn’t full of horrible mean people. And even though there was a few horrible mean people in the book, they didn’t get all the attention and focus, and that was really wonderful.

In Conclusion:

Everything about this book was just so wonderful and EVERYBODY needs to read it.