The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan

My rating: 4.5 of 5 teacups


I never imagined I would enjoy this as much as I did. This book has been on my mental TBR list long before I even had a goodreads account, basically because it seems that everyone who reads it recommends it to me and yet it's taken me so long to get around to it. I would guess The Raging Quiet struggles to find an audience when historical fiction is not a very popular YA genre to start with, and the ones that are feature corsets and affairs - like an 18th century Gossip Girl. Just to note, technically this is also a fantasy novel because Torcurra is fictional, but apart from place names there's no reason why this couldn't be regular historical fiction.

One of the first things I noticed and loved about this novel was the setting. It's a very cold, dark, pastoral and gothically beautiful place. It reminded me a lot of Wuthering Heights with that sense of isolation and wilderness, I loved how completely imaginable it was without even having to be big on the descriptions.

The tale is about two outsiders - Marnie and Raven - and how they come to develop an understanding of one another. Marnie arrives in Tocurra with her new and much older husband who she has married to save her family from poverty and who also tells her she will "learn to like it" after he more or less rapes her. Raven is the village madman - believed so because he is actually deaf - and the locals attempt to whip the demons out of him. Marnie first comes under suspicion of foul play when her husband falls to his death, a suspicion that only grows when her and Raven develop a sign language to communicate by. And trust me, this isn't the time or place to be suspected of witchcraft.

This is a novel that will tear up your heart and send your emotions into overdrive. It's horrifying to read some of the things done to young women who were accused of being witches, this book may be labelled "fantasy", but the rituals are entirely real. It's frustrating too, so many times I wanted to yell at the unfairness of it all - imagine an infected wound being a symbol that God is marking your guilt of witchiness!

But, in the end, this is also a very sweet and touching novel about two people who don't fit in finding their own little world together, their own way of living that suits them both, others be damned. I was moved by it and I think it will be hard to find a reader who isn't.