A curious little suspense piece with a wholly unreliable narrator.

Leah has akinetopsia, a rare disability that makes her unable to perceive movement. Though she walks around with a white stick, she sees a lot more (both visually and through her excellent senses of smell and hearing) than people realize.

Her life is relatively simple and peaceful, with no living parents and a community of older friends in her apartment building … or at least, it is until Alice moves next door. Alice is tormented, and Leah hears fights with her abusive husband through the wall. The women become fast friends, but Leah soon discovers she has a mysterious stalker, someone who leaves strange notes and has left his scent behind after breaking into her apartment.

Leah has to parse reality from fiction, and figure out how to save her friends and herself. 

The Silence In Her Eyes was very digestible – I liked the short chapters, almost like little blinks throughout Leah’s day – but didn’t always bring the suspense for me. There were so many swirling doubts that it was hard to keep up the tension. Leah can be a tough narrator because she is so detached and mostly takes every new devastation in stride. 

I thought Leah’s akinetopsia was quite interesting, and loved the segments that explored how she viewed the world (especially through photography). However, there was a strange amount of repetitive info-dumping. This was a very short book; we didn’t need to hear the dictionary definition of akinetopsia again and again. (Also, I was so creeped out by the doctor - and I’m not sure if that was intentional because there wasn’t any followup there!)

There were some fun twists & turns at the very end, but I wished the action was more sprinkled throughout. It felt like we didn’t even reach the conflict described in the blurb until 70% through the story. 

Overall, it was an interesting psychological thriller, but not one I would rave about and rush to recommend.

CW: murder, suicide, overdose, ableism, sexual assault, domestic abuse, death of parent, dementia, grief, infidelity, mental illness, panic attacks, stalking

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)