The Silent Room (review)

Oz's mother's new boyfriend, Don, has moved in with Oz and his mother, and Don's near-constant verbal abuse is effective in goading Oz into outbursts that help frame him as a troublemaker at school and at home, considerably damaging relations between mother and son. After thus establishing that Oz is a troubled teen, Don engineers Oz's abduction in the middle of the night, and Oz is taken to Briarwood, a reform school for boys located in the middle of a Florida swamp, miles from any human contact. Not only are the rules Draconian—disobedience is often punished by running miles without sufficient food or drink—but suspicious goings-on lead Oz and some of his fellow inmates to believe that Briarwood is not a legitimate institution at all but part of a scam to wear down the boys and, if necessary, torture them through prolonged sensory deprivation in the Silent Room in order to get them to sign over their trust funds. By becoming friendly with the headmistress' daughter, Camryn, tinkering around with a broken boat, and informing a sympathetic guard of his suspicions, Oz hopes to find a route to escape—but it appears when and where he least expects it, and only after an excruciating stint in the Silent Room. Last-minute developments, plot twists, and cases of mistaken identity are often over the top, and the sneering villains and stereotypically complaisant female additionally put this firmly in the category of formula fare. The descriptions of Briarwood, especially of the experience of sensory deprivation, are genuinely horrifying, though, and Oz and his comrades' attempted escape is harrowing enough to compensate for a rather hastily wrapped up conclusion. Despite the hackneyed elements, the exciting premise and eventful plot may make this high-action ride a success with action/adventure and mystery fans.