THE SHARP EDGE OF SILENCE

A young woman returns to her prestigious New Hampshire boarding school the fall after she was raped by a fellow student.

Told in first-person perspective by three different students, the narration alternates among Quinn, who goes by Q, a promising artist who is the assault survivor; Charlotte, a talented dancer whose relationship with a popular guy is making her second-guess herself at every turn; and Max, a high-achieving student on a full-ride scholarship who has acutely felt his outsider status during his time at Lycroft Phelps. In a winding tale that incorporates the traumatic experience of sexual assault, the failure of people to take a stand against campus cultures that encourage sexual violence, an all-male secret society, and an exploration of the magnetic appeal of team loyalty and camaraderie, this novel takes its time building its characters’ stories. While the proliferation of misogyny in insular privileged schools is not a new tale, this telling is expansive in its examination of the subject and offers an auspicious, realistically imperfect resolution for patient readers who stick with it to the end. The three main characters reflect a White default; there is ethnic diversity in secondary characters as well as some passing critique of the superficial claims of valuing diversity on display at their school.

An unflinching, necessarily emotionally difficult read with plenty to say.