I just read radio silence a few days ago and have been trying to figure out the feeling it gave me. I knew it was something to do with a story focused on friendship but that wasn’t it. There are lots of amazing stories that focus on friendship and radio sielnce is one of them but radio silence has something else that is unique and I have never read before. I kept describing radio silence as a romance but with friendship. I meant this both in the way that radio silence follows the arc and some of the tropes of a romance (especially at the start) but also because it gave me the feeling of a romance. I have never read a book about friendship that gave me the close to the same feelings as reading a story about a romantic pair. I have never read a story about friendship that felt heartstopping and gave me butterflies in my stomach. Radio silence showing that you can still have that feeling with friendship and not just with romance means so much to me as someone who is ace, that those heartstopping, butterfly moments are not reserved for romantic relationships for alloromantic people, that we can have that too, is frankly groundbreaking. Aled and Frances’ friendship is so beautiful and unique and heartstopping and I can’t stop thinking about it.
