Another debut novel from an independent author! Honestly, these are my favourite books to read and review as it is a true Forrest Gump chocolate box moment. Izzy Matias’s debut is no exception to the deliciousness of this analogy.
Meet the Author
“Izzy Matias is an author, blogger, and content creator. With over 10 years of experience in different writing fields, she has written for multinational brands as well as startup companies. After graduation, she completed a Creative Writing summer program at the University of Oxford. She blogs at www.izzymatias.com where she teaches others how to start a profitable blog.”
Connect with Izzy online:
Twitter
Instagram
read more about Izzy on her website here
As well as being an author, Izzy is a full time blogger and gives excellent advice, so make sure to stop by and give her posts a read!
The Review
Yet another book to take me back to my teenage years! 2000s/2010s teenagers can relate to this love of summer gigs and becoming a famous rock band more than anyone. We grew up with the peak of pop-punk Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, and the prime of Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chilli Peppers to name just a few. This balanced with the sensibility of you must study a REAL degree mentality from family members really put the rockstar dreams on hold. The Hush Society Project explores this very specific age of insecurity, and it explores it very well.
About the Book
A nostalgic coming-of-age tale that navigates the awkward unknown between high school and university, following passions and family relationships. Set in the UK, the book follows Cameron, a teenager on the cusp of going to university to follow his parent’s ideas of what he should do in his life. However, Cameron has other ideas after meeting Cassie and her music project The Hush Society. The last summer between high school and university quickly turns into a summer of gigs, friendship, personal development, and moral dilemma…
Story and Characters
You can tell from the start that this is a book written by a smart, compassionate woman. The characters are balanced and respectful, the main character being a boy is written in the way all us girls want boys to be (to some extent), and believable enough to be a teenage boy in his position.
Cameron’s relationship with his family is pretty accurate to reality. I really enjoyed how the characters interact with each other in terms of speech and description, the strain between father and son in particular.
Other characters in this book are not an afterthought. The characters that are only mentioned in passing or introduced only a few times have been well fleshed out and personable.
The story itself starts at a good pace for introducing everything, a perfect setup some could say for the rollercoaster of highs and lows that follow. The amount of emotions that are processed in the span of a single summer is incredibly applicable to most high school leavers. Everything changes so quickly and in so many different directions it’s hard to keep up, and the story reflects this by following Cameron, Benji, Eric, and Cassie in their goals.
My Rating (4.5/5)
A huge thank you to Izzy for letting me review her work and don’t forget to check out her website!
If you are looking for a blogspot review on my blog feel free to contact me
Links to my sites:
Briony Molly 