The Story Of Silence breaks the bounds of gender border

The Story Of Silence

By Alex Myers

Genre: Fairy tale, Fantasy, LGBTQ, adventure

Age category: 15+

Release Date: July 3, 2020

About The Book: 

A knightly fairy tale of royalty and dragons, of midwives with secrets and dashing strangers in dark inns. Taking the original French legend as his starting point, The Story of Silence is a rich, multilayered new story for today’s world – sure to delight fans of Uprooted and The Bear and the Nightingale.

There was once, long ago, a foolish king who decreed that women should not, and would not, inherit. Thus when a girl-child was born to Lord Cador – Merlin-enchanted fighter of dragons and Earl of Cornwall – he secreted her away: to be raised a boy so that the family land and honor would remain intact.

That child’s name was Silence.

Silence must find their own place in a medieval world that is determined to place the many restrictions of gender and class upon them. With dreams of knighthood and a lonely heart to answer, Silence sets out to define themselves.

Soon their silence will be ended.

Star Rating: 4/5

Review:

The story of silence is the retelling of a medieval poem 'Silence.' The story starts when a stranger named Silence enters an inn and tells his story to a bard and the bard retells the story to the reader. I have never read a book that explains sex and gender so well. Silence is a girl by nature and a boy by nurture. 

"Those of us who live in Fey find it easier not to burden ourselves with a body, most of the time." The nymph smiled, "Is that what you want? Not to have a body? I can see how it could be a burden for a boy like you. A boy who is a girl under his clothes."

The main focus is identity crisis and defining themselves. For fans of mythology, the book also features Merlin and tales of King Arthur. 

"Unless I am mistaken?" Merlin replied.  "Handsome as you are and beautiful too. A woman and a man. A man as much as a woman. Proof that we are all a little both, a little neither. Proof that rules hold us less tightly than we imagine! Nature speaks to us all in our own individual riddles. Haw!"

 I would recommend this book to anyone trying to understand and learn the fluidity of gender or who is confused about themselves. This is the best book to read during pride month. 

An excerpt of the poem 'silence':

"He [Silence] was so used to men's usage
and had so rejected women's ways
that little was lacking for him to be a man
Whatever one could see was certainly male!"

It's really great to see that the 13th century was more understanding of genders and sex than we are.

The only thing that I didn't like was I didn't felt the excitement and urge to go on. I think the writing style could have used some help to create excitement in readers. Or maybe it's just that I'm so used to YA writing style, lol. Nonetheless, this is the most underrated LGBTQIA+ book and you definitely need to read it.