Silently Still is the story of an Irish girl Jacinta who has a hard time growing up whilst trying to deal with her mum and her mental illness and loss and grief from losing her father. I wasn't sure what I'd think of this story as it sounded a lot more of a tear jerker of a book than I'd usually choose but with all the great reviews I was intrigued and thought I'd give it a read.

From the first page, the first thing I noticed about the book was the Irish dialect. I hated reading it in this way and was put off continuing the book but I did and it didn't get any better as the book went on. I feel it was too much and was unecessary, there are still some words which I'm not sure what they're referring to now!

The story I found hard to get into, with the first few chapters I was getting bored and didn't find the story was really going anywhere. Around fifty pages in the story did get more interesting but I still never really felt that it seemed to be going anywhere. I felt sad for Jacinta and everything she had to go through but I didn't find I ever really connected with her as a character and this did make it hard to empathise with her. I wanted to understand her more as a character but I felt the book was lacking in that and rather focused on everything everyone else was doing that effected her but not what she was thinking and feeling as a result.

I liked some of the characters in the story but also found some frustrating and annoying to read about. I can understand that her mum, for example, was struggling but I found it hard to get why she would make Jacinta do or feel in such ways when we never really got to know the mum at all aside from her neglecting / abusing Jacinta.

Having finished the book I'm still not sure what I think of it now, I wanted to enjoy it and at some points I was interested to know what was going to happen but at the same time it felt long and drawn out and the characters sometimes made it hard to be empathetic towards them. It is a good read with some important and sensitive topics but it's not one I'd choose to read again.

I can not praise this beautiful, heart wrenching and heart warming story highly enough. What you are presented with is, a story that represents real life, loss, mental abuse, self harm and ultimately love. The author handles all these situations with such care, making each character so real that you cannot but feel strong emotions for them and what they are going through. With everything that was thrown at Jacinta from such a young age, you expect her to crumble under the pressure, but ultimately she shows that no matter what she experiences, there is always a way to keep on going. One of the hardest parts for me to read involved her mother. A woman who was so full of life who became crazed with grief which made her inflict the worse kind of pain on a daughter she should have sheltered. But you cannot hate her, she was dealing with her own demons, not knowing which way to turn and not wanting to admit she had a problem became her downfall. The subject of Jacinta's self-harm was also hard to read, to put yourself into her place, you wonder, would you be strong enough to control the urge to end it all or would you try to find a glimmer of hope where there seems to be none.