Book Review: Silver Elite and Why You Might Hate This New Dystopian Romance Novel Taking Over Booktok and Bookstagram
Silver Elite by Dani Francis has been taking over the Booktok and Bookstagram feeds over the past couple weeks, and it’s purported to have sold 24,000+ copies in its first week. Seems like a resounding success, right? I, unfortunately, was disappointed from the first chapter. And as I’m starting to see more critical reviews roll in, I see I’m not alone in my disappointment. To be clear, this isn’t going to be a pile-on hate fest, but I am going to be honest about what I felt this book let me down, and why you may or may not enjoy it. It had such great potential, and I’m honestly sad I didn’t love it. Here’s the premise: It’s a post-apocalyptic world, dealing with the fall out from a world war that wiped out most people. It also seemed to cause climate devastation, but that’s never really addressed in any meaningful way. However, some people who were exposed to a neurotoxin have found themselves ‘modified’ and have powers of telepathy, projection, and more. And of course, all of the regular people, ‘primes’, are scared of them. There was also a military coup we’re told very little about, but essentially the FMC’s continent is run by a military regime dictatorship.
We’re first introduced to Wren, our main character, in a compromising position, and it goes a bit downhill from there. We learn she’s a Mod, but she’s extra special (of course), and has super dangerous and rare powers. Oh, and you can tell when a Mod is using their powers because their veins in their arms glow silver. But, of course, not hers. So she’s able to pass as a Prime, which is great because Mods are pretty much killed on sight. I found Wren to be insufferable as a main character, but we’ll get to that. When she’s forced to join the enemy’s Command military, training for Silver Elite, basically a commando unit within the military, she’ll try anything to escape. We spend over half this book with her purposefully trying to fail out, and that got really old, fast. I can see why some have said it’s similar to Divergent and Fourth Wing because of the training and found family vibes, plus enemies to lovers, but while I had a great time reading those, this was a bit of a slog for me. Let’s get into why…
A quick note: There’s also been a lot of controversy surrounding the use of a pen name with this book. Pen names are common and a protection of privacy and I frankly don’t love that people are trying to be investigative journalists to out or dox this author. It’s none of our business who this author is. If you have qualms about who this author might be, there’s an easy fix: don’t read the book. If you can’t deal with the FOMO, that’s a you problem. Authors don’t owe you access or personal information.
Things to Know:
Book one of an unfinished series
Dystopian LITE
Post-apocalyptic Romance
Romance/Spice centric/Instalust
Enemies to lovers
Military Training
TW: SA, Death, Torture
***MINOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT—YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!***
If you liked the Red Pearl scene in From Blood and Ash, you will probably enjoy the beginning of this book. Her first run-in with Captain Cross felt very similar, except our Wren is the opposite of Poppy and is super promiscuous, sleeping around with soldiers on the regular. A threesome is even alluded to in chapter one. That’s a big fat no for me. I need yearning and angst and relationship building (but if you’re just in it for the spice, you might enjoy). So it didn’t start off great for me, but I was still willing to give it a chance. I was promised an “adult Hunger Games” afterall.
And this is where the marketing of this book did it a disservice. This was in no way like The Hunger Games. The only similarity is that there’s a place called “The Capitol”. Some people are saying this book isn’t even Dystopian, which I disagree with. It is. But it’s more like Dystopian lite. There are some glossed over moments that address the oppression and persecution of the Mods, and there’s a rebel group, but some of it feels like an afterthought. Like, “Oh wait, I need to throw something in here about a massacre.” At its core, this is a post-apocalyptic military romance, and it should have been marketed that way. I do think traditional Romance readers might enjoy this book a lot more than avid Dystopian and Fantasy readers who thrive on rich worldbuilding, because it does follow a lot of the same beats as a contemporary Romance. But Romances can have rich worldbuilding too, and this just…didn’t. So take that into consideration before picking this up.
There were also a lot of times I felt the writing and research was just lazy. For example: at one point soldiers are pointing long rifles at their own heads…this is not possible, and made me realize this author has probably never held a gun in their life. There’s also a point where the FMC is complaining about downtime between missions, and how she ‘doesn’t remember the last time she shot her rifle’. Excuse me? The ‘downtime’ is literally when these elite units are in constant practice. I promise I’m not part of an elite unit, but I fear this should be common sense, or easily researched. Some might think I’m nitpicking here, but when it’s not just one time, but things like this popping up over and over and over throughout the entirety of the book, it starts to feel like lazy writing.
Wren as a main character is messy, super cocky, enjoys stirring the pot, and she’s impulsive to the point you just want to shake her at making the most moronic decisions (umm hello, removing the scars?!). Again, that feels lazy to me. Making your FMC make stupid decisions to move the plot forward that don’t really make sense logically is super frustrating as a reader. And it happens over and over again in this book. She also says things like, “Why did Jim have to teach me how to shoot? And why am I so good at it?” Seriously? Insert eye roll. Also, the way she speaks to her instructors and the Captain? She would never get away with this in any military. It’s like she thinks she’s untouchable.
I also had a big problem with how every single time any male character enters the page, whether they are a love interest or not, Wren ONLY describes them in the context of if she wants to sleep with them, or how attractive they are. There are no other descriptions. At all. It felt like every man was objectified, and honestly gave me the ick. If it were the reverse, I would feel offended. We don’t like it when men do this in books to women, so why would you do it here?
Everyone who read it in my Discord community also clocked the Wolf situation from his first mention, so that wasn’t a surprise at all. Just about the only thing that felt slightly interesting was Kaine’s situation, but keeping the spoilers lite here!
Also, her name is ‘Wren’, but the main love interest calls her ‘Dove’, which seems a bit weird. What’s with the second bird name? And speaking of Mr. Captain, son of the enemy, I was so beyond disappointed with the way he speaks to her. Their banter isn’t clever, nor did it make me giggle. It was downright mean spirited and on occasion offensive. Wren isn’t a very nice person, and Cross says some super demeaning things that I didn’t find attractive or funny. He calls her a bit*h, and at one point says she “makes a great wh*re”. WTF? If a man spoke to me the way he speaks to her, I’d be running the other direction.
You can tell the author probably had a fun time writing this book, which is great for them. They just wanted to write a good time, because it felt like they wrote a story they wanted to read, if that makes sense. It’s very simple, and easily understood, so perhaps it might appeal to readers just looking for a spicy read, with very surface level relationships, and not much else.
Overall, I was so excited to read this, and felt super let down by the writing, the story structure, and the characters. It’s a GREAT premise, and I felt like it had a lot of potential, but the execution just wasn’t there for me. The books I love most make me feel deeply, whether they evoke joy, gut-wrenching horror, sadness, anger, or laughter. This book sadly didn’t do that for me. Many thanks to Del Rey for a beautiful PR box and ALC, which I listened to, while reading my physical copy. All the stars for the narrator, who did a great job with a less than stellar story. If you are going to read it, I definitely would recommend the audiobook. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be continuing this series. Del Rey, don’t hate me—I just gotta keep it real for my readers.
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