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A Quiet Place

Peter D. Burchard

3.17 · Rating details · 6 ratings · 1 review

During a summer in Maine, a teenage girl learns many things about herself through her relationship to two different boys.

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Hardcover, 94 pages

Published January 1st 1972 by Coward McCann

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3.17 ·

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Jan 28, 2019 Brin rated it it was ok

Shelves: contemporary, contemporary-romance, coming-of-age, read-in-2019, romance, vintage-reads, vintage-ya, ya-contemporary, young-adult, ya-romance

A Quiet Place by Peter D. Burchard wasn’t a bad book necessarily but it just felt kinda… pointless? Not really sure how I felt about it. Lots of meaningless descriptions and very little in the way of plot or characterization. I came out of the book not knowing a single thing about the characters – I felt that far removed from them.

The story centres around Cindy a young girl who is torn between two young men: the exciting and dangerous Mark, and the sweet and safe Ike. Cindy flits between these t A Quiet Place by Peter D. Burchard wasn’t a bad book necessarily but it just felt kinda… pointless? Not really sure how I felt about it. Lots of meaningless descriptions and very little in the way of plot or characterization. I came out of the book not knowing a single thing about the characters – I felt that far removed from them.

The story centres around Cindy a young girl who is torn between two young men: the exciting and dangerous Mark, and the sweet and safe Ike. Cindy flits between these two young men – she cares a great deal for Ike (or so we are told) yet finds Mark tantalizing (again, this is told but not really shown).

The synopsis puts a great deal of emphasis on Cindy’s connection with each boy but I never got a particularly strong sense that she liked either of them? She told many people that she was very fond of Ike and his family but I never really saw much connection there.

As for Mark – he is supposed to be the troubled ‘bad boy’ but this did not come across in the text at all. He is rude certainly, and drives his car way too fast – which becomes a plot point later on – but otherwise he just felt really bland. Ike is even more of a cardboard cutout – he is just there and that is all I could really say about him.

Cindy was also very one-dimensional. She claimed to have a lot of dreams and a longing for adventure but this is never really conveyed with any great detail in the text. She is a flat character and even though she was the focal point, I couldn’t get a read on her at all and you never really got an insight into her inner thoughts of feelings.

The book opens with describing her as ‘the girl’ and she felt like ‘the girl’ right until the end – not a real, live person at all.

I was expecting to enjoy this one as the description sounding rather interesting and I was looking forward to seeing a different ‘take’ on the traditional love triangle that has become so prevalent in young adult novels today. I was sorely disappointed by how thin the characterization was and the plot… well, there wasn’t much of a plot at all; just a series of events described in endless, mundane detail.

Don’t let the synopsis fool you either – I couldn’t parse out just what ‘decision’ Cindy came to about which boy to go for (or indeed, if she decided to not bother with either of them). Nor what her future entailed. By the end, I really didn’t care either!

It might be the old-fashioned writing style (but that usually isn’t a problem for me so I doubt it) but this book just didn’t really speak much to me at all. The writing itself wasn’t terrible – it just didn’t draw me in. I believe the author has a couple of highly regarded novels (which are probably more to my taste) so I will probably try another of his works at some point.

I borrowed this one from the Library and I’m glad I never actually spent time (or money!) tracking this down (and I normally love collecting vintage YA titles). Definitely will not be adding this to my permanent collection, that’s for sure!

Some interesting ideas but a poor execution and paper-thin characters kept me from getting immersed in this book. My first disappointing read of 2019. ...more

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About Peter D. Burchard

Peter D. Burchard

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Peter Burchard was the author of 26 books, nonfiction and fiction, adult and juvenile and the illustrator of more than 100 books.
His biography "One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment" (1965), became the main source of historical material for "Glory," the Academy Award-winning film featuring Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick, who portrayed Col. Shaw, ...more