This book was primarily a 4 star for most of the book, with the ending dropping it to a 3. I'm going to talk about most of my feelings and even though it reveals some of the plot, its not really spoilers because it's what you should be expecting. I actually think if you go into the book with these expectations you may like it more.
The first thing I was wrong about, and actually glad I was, is that he doesn't have telepathy but Empathy. Which is the power to feel emotions of others, not read their minds. Which I think actually works so much better, the author really had fun painting this power for us to imagine. It was more unique and it adds a lot more tension and drama because the feelings make it difficult to control what are ACTUALLY HIS emotions and when they are OTHERS emotions. It also get's a lot deeper and expands more on these abilities and emotions that I thought it would. Pleasantly surprised!
This was really interesting and made one of the main points of our second character, Adam, more intriguing because he suffers through depression. Reading about depression through the emphatic color filter was so palpable.
Unfortunately, this brings me to my first thing I was "wrong" about. I say wrong in quotations because it was more that I didn't know if Caleb and Adam were actually going to get together. And as someone who REALLY enjoys gay novels, I found myself for the first time hoping this was going to remain a platonic relationship. That is definitely not the case.
I felt this way because honestly Adam and Caleb helping each other understand their conditions in a platonic way felt so much more meaningful and special. I cant completely explain how but they just didnt "fit" (which is funny because one of the other characters LITERALLY say that they do)
I mean sure they were cute, and not a bad couple, but I just didnt feel it and felt dissapointed it didnt turn out differently.
Furthermore, on this topic, as I stated above: Caleb feels others emotions which begin to effect his own. So I thought (when I still wasnt 100% sure they would get together) that he actually didnt like Adam and he was just feeling what Adam felt for him. It did not turn out this way and he ended up liking Adam for HIS feelings. There is this vagueness about whether Caleb is ACTUALLY gay its kind just "I dont know, I just like Adam." Which is...not necessarily bad, but I feel like it wasn't pulled off well. I still didnt understand and couldn't feel why Caleb chose Adam as a romantic partner. I actually thought there was this nice underlying theme about getting to know someone and changing their negative feelings but reaching out and just BEING there for someone. So I felt this missed opportunity to show this WITHOUT romance.
It really didnt feel like Adam or Caleb should be looking for a romantic partner during their time, but rather a platonic one. Hell if you take out anytime Caleb says hes interested in being physical with Adam, or any of their physical scenes, it could basically remain the same. I think it would feel more natural. It would be beautiful for a gay person to find a deep bond with a straight guy and they could share their emotions and secrets without it developing to romance.
Regardless of all of this, I still liked it and had a good four star experience. That is until the end. So the rest will be my spoiler discussion of the end.
So if you haven't read the book I will briefly describe that throughout the book it is revealed there are other people like Caleb who have special powers. (One of them even, briefly introduced, Damien, has his origin story explained in book 2.) And theres a vague hint of an organization that "studies" them. All of a sudden close to the end (where it really felt like the author didnt know how she wanted to end it) we have a telepath read the minds of Adams parents (who were VERY un subtly described as clearly working on/ being aware of people with powers) and we find out they had something to do with experiments on people with powers.
We get a VERY clunky and awkward scene where Caleb just tells his therapist (Dr Bright who works with powered people) and Adam what the Telepath, Chloe, said. They both kind of freak out and Caleb just leaves. Then we get these very short, one page chapters, about them thinking about each other all summer but not talking. (Yeah the author completely skips over Summer, which I have a HUGE biased for because I love summer and was looking forward to a really cute ending in the Summer) Then at the end they just come back together apologize and makeup and get back together. I HONESTLY dont know why they had to skip all the way to the school year again EXCEPT I guess to show a scene where Caleb stands up for Adam one more time?
Lastly, Adams depression, though not entirely forgotten necessarily, but is left completely undeveloped. I was really looking forward to them address and getting some really good moments of it.
I feel like the author spent WAY to much of the book dragging her feet on getting them together and sorting out their feelings for each other, that she could have cut alot of that out and been able to expand on the end and not rush it. It was so close to be a solid GREAT book.
I just felt SO wanting by the end of this book, it was pretty sad and disappointing.
But that is a wrap up of my review for The Infinite Noise. With the right expectations you can get a pretty fun story, and some beautifully written powers.
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