Helena's Reviews > Archer's Voice

When I first read this book I felt a bit pressured to like it since it's everyone's favourite. That being said, my previous review and my rating weren't really honest. So after thinking about it for two months, I've decided to remove those and express my honest opinion even though the majority won't agree with it.

I like my books to have some point, deliver some message or help me hear about difficulties people different from me have. Even when I read romance novels, I don't read them just for entertainment purposes, I like to think about them, disect them to some extend, I want them to be diverse and realistic. So I really thought this book could be great, having characters with disability and a troubled past but it ended up being a disappointment. It represented disability in a bad light and it represented mental issues/illness in a potentially harmful way.

First of all, I thought we were over the "love-at-first-sight trope". It is overused, boring and unrealistic. There is attraction at first sight, there could be chemistry at first sight but love at first sight isn't a thing, stars don't just rearrange and the universe doesn't stop for a moment because you just saw someone attractive.

Secondly, while I myself don't have a physical disability, I think many people who are mute wouldn't agree with the representation in this book. Archer is an emotionally undeveloped loner, is seen as lunatic by everyone and was put through situations which are very unlikely to happen. I get it, he's been through a trauma but come on, really?

Thirdly, both of the protagonists have been through a lot, they witnessed stuff that left them with a permanent scar, that damaged them mentally therefore there is a very high chance they suffer from PTSD. But in this book, their suffers are romanticized and they are suddenly over it after "falling in love". IT IS 2018 STOP ROMANTICIZING MENTAL ILLNESS! Do authors not realise that such things have possibly harmful influence on their readers who might have the same problems? People don't just get over their mental issues once they're in love and they shouldn't ignore their panic attacks and they shouldn't just deal with it. People with mental illness or people who suffered need help! They need someone to talk to, and when I say talk to I don't mean "Oh sweetie it's okay it's alright now I love you" I mean real ass talk with a skilled person who will talk about their actual problems, who could give them meds, who could possibly improve quality of their life by helping them solve things they can't solve on their own. This should be normalised by now, people shouldn't be shamed for needing help after the things they had to go through. So you can take your "everything is fine because we're in lOoOoOvE" and stick it where the sun doesn't shine!

Finally, while the writing style was decent, the characters were plain and boring. There is nothing about them that could make me want to read their story except Archer's disability but as mentioned before, that was also ruined.

That all being said, I cannot give this book more than 1 star.