Have you ever wanted to watch someone ruin their own life?

Feed Them Silence was a book I could not put down, though I desperately wanted to. It’s so well written, compelling, bleak. In fewer than 125 pages, Lee Mandelo put me through the wringer. The backbone of the book is a near future, science-y premise, but really the story is one of watching someone self-immolate and wondering how easily that could be…me.

To begin with, Sean sucks. In a novella, a character doesn’t get to be that many versions of themselves, and so…this version of Sean is one that would not pass muster in an AITA post on Reddit. She has a massive case of Main Character Syndrome (leaving out that she is, you know, the main character), and she acknowledges no one outside of what they can do for her.

And although I want to believe I’d be better than her, there’s a lot I recognize in these pages. Marriage inter-twined with ambition and ego. Losing yourself in a job or a hobby, finding yourself needing it to escape from a painful reality, and the closed loop created thereby. Convincing yourself the thing that YOU want is the Right Thing, and you definitely aren’t being selfish or behaving poorly right now.

Up until the very last page, I couldn’t guess how it would end. I didn’t WANT there to be an easy ending for Sean, who I both empathized with and wanted to strangle the entire time. Without spoilers, I’ll just say that if I knew Sean in real life, I would just slowly stop responding to her text messages and float away from her.

I definitely recommend this book. I can’t think of another recent story that I enjoyed reading so much, while so thoroughly disliking all the things it made me feel.

(Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for a free copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review.)

Lee Mandelo's Feed Them Silence is a near-future novella set nearly entirely in two places: the lab, where researchers lead by our main character, an academic, study the behavior of wolves from a new perspective, inside of a wolf's mind transmitted to our main character through a technological implant and translated through her understanding, and in the home of our main character, where she (a butch white woman) lives with her wife (a woman of color, also in academia) as their marriage crumbles.

In this short book, Mandelo spans many topics: climate change and nature, academic observation vs .obstruction/intervention, marriage and gender roles in the home, domestication vs. wildness, connection and loneliness. He handles each topic with immense sensitivity and grace. Even where his characters are unlikeable, and the main character here is, he deftly and compassionately guides you through their thinking and understanding. I found this book to be thought-provoking on all fronts -- making me think deeply about nature and our connection to it, about love and the bonds we choose.

If this book has a major fault, in my opinion, it is that it was not longer. The shorter form is poignant, but the topics within and the narrative felt like they could have been expanded upon even more without losing what made this book great. I loved it.

This was one interesting premise of a book, and when I started it I had some high hopes for what was to come. I did not understand all the science behind it, which was fine, as they do not need you too. You know what is going on, which is good, and I admit I started withy mixed feeling about what the characters were going to be doing.

When it comes to the main character, I don't see much to like about her, if I am honest, but I do feel sorry for those in her life.

But the way the author describes the senses that the character shares with the wolf, now that was amazing and I enjoyed those bits immensely. The scents, colours, thoughts and feelings the interaction of wolf and the pack. That was some great writing.

I wasn't a big fan of the ending, but can like them all. But is this book worth reading? The it is a big fat YES from me.

Mandelo’s skill at writing embodiment is showcased in Feed Them Silence, with the viscera of human and animal experience laid raw and reaching. Same as with his first book, many scenes are crafted so vividly they feel like memories that I won't be able to shake for too long. At the risk of comparing two very different books, I want to note that I loved how distinctly different the introspection of this main character felt from their last book; the clarity, even when self-deluding, of Sean's inner voice is a delight to suffer alongside and establishes a maturity without skirting past her younger drives.

If you're not a frequent novella reader because you find it hard to connect with characters in such a short space, you likely won't have that problem here — Mandelo has deftly fleshed out main and side characters using small, unique gestures that were simple yet moving. Sean’s relationship conflict with her wife Riya was so deeply painful to watch play out and so well-crafted; so much of their dialogue will be a relable gut-punch for readers in longer-term relationships. The line “as if the pair of them were each acting the life they’d rather be living, for the sake of a minute’s respite” left me feeling a bleak sort of evisceration.

It feels necessary to comment on parasocial relationships and narcissism as they're the heart of this narrative, but I think I'd rather everyone reading this review just pick up the book and hear what Mandelo’s saying. Doubtless other reviewers will also cover this ground too, so I'll only add: so thoughtful, pointed, and well-crafted.

Mild, vague spoiler ahead:

My only note was a really bleak and rough event at the end was skated past quite quickly, which I believe was on purpose because the true emotional crush was Sean’s decision of what to do afterward. I'd be even more wrecked after reading what that scene -could- have looked like so thanks Mandelo, and also, emphatically, ow.

3.5 stars


Super conflicted feelings about this one. On one hand, Mandelo delivers the same fantastic narrative voice and style that they gave us in Summer Sons, one of my favourite books last year. I felt motivated to know what would happen, and since I love Mandelo's writing, I devoured it quickly.

On the flip side, there were parts that I really, really didn't like. For one, I SUPER did not like the main character. She's not supposed to be likeable -- she's very clearly meant to be disliked by the reader for how she treats her wife (a fellow academic, who is a woman of color) and for how she embodies qualities of toxic masculinity that are all too common in academia (both in her lab and in her daily life). And I really appreciated how the author critiques these aspects that people in academia can embody, no matter their gender or sexuality. But -- maybe because I encounter so many similar people in my professional life day to day -- I found her to be so unlikeable that I struggled to connect to her conflicts.

Additionally -- and this is absolutely a me problem -- I was not in the headspace to read a book that's so near-future and already so depressing regarding climate catastrophe. Climate crisis & catastrophe featured even more heavily than I had expected, and while I would absolutely describe myself as an environmentalist, I cannot dwell on that in my fiction reading. If that doesn't bother you in your fiction, I think this novella will be much more successful for you.

All in all, I'm glad I got to read this early! I would recommend it, but would definitely keep the aspects I disliked in mind if those are areas you're not interested in having in your fiction reading.

Feed Them Silence is one hell of a read. Bringing work-life balance to the center in this sci-fi tale about a scientist of dubious ethics researching one of the last packs of wild wolves, Feed Them Silence blurs the lines between animal and human and what's objective and subjective. It's a study in loneliness, and all the placebos for true connections technology lets us explore. Watching Sean continue to make one bad decision after another in her personal and professional life was a transgressive delight. Trust me, this book is going to live in your head rent-free well after reading the final page.

Thank you, Tor/Forge, for allowing me to read Feed Them Silence early.

Summer Sons is one of my most favorite reads, so of course I wanted to read Feed Them Silence badly. The story is way different from Summer Sons, but boy, oh boy, did I enjoy myself. I just read it in one sitting until late night. Can't wait to buy a copy!

I hadn't read anything by Lee Mandelo before but I really enjoy scifi books, and this book had a great description. After reading this I will be checking out other books from Lee Mandelo. This was wonderfully written and it had a great scifi feel to it. I love when science goes over the line and I was invested in what was happening in the book and to the characters. It was so well done I was looking for more in this universe.

"On her laptop screen, gusts of wind blew the snow in a swirling dance. Sean bent to grab her journals from the floor. She missed the passage of a gaunt creature through the border trees—the flash of its stare catching the moonlight, floating like a starving ghost."

Upon hearing that Lee Mandelo was releasing something new, I knew I had to get my hands on it. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC which gave me extremely early access to yet another masterpiece from this author. After Summer Sons, I knew that Mandelo would be one of my immediate buy authors for the rest of the foreseeable future. Their haunting prose is what truly sets them apart from a lot of the other authors I read. The idea of a sort of parasocial relationship between a woman and a wolf isn’t normally something I would jump at reading, but like I said, I would jump at anything Lee Mandelo writes. Not only did I devour this, but I was devoured by this.

Feed Them Silence is a lot different than a lot of what is being put out lately and it grabs you right from the start. The mix of the obsessed artist type Sean and her toxic relationship with both an endangered creature and her estranged wife is absurdly addicting. Sean’s need for communication even though she could have it if she only turned around is heartbreaking and relatable. And while the conclusion is shattering it also has an air of hope that screams realistic, especially in today’s world. On sale March 14, 2023; don’t miss it!