ARC Review: Whisper to Me by Nick Lake

Whisper to Me by Nick Lake

Genre: YA Contemporary, Romance

Publication: May 3rd 2016 by Bloomsbury Children’s

Series: n/a

Length: 400 pages

Format: eARC from publisher

Goodreads

A remarkable story of strange beauty and self-discovery from Printz Award winner Nick Lake

Cassie is writing a letter to the boy whose heart she broke. She’s trying to explain why. Why she pushed him away. Why her father got so angry when he saw them together. Why she disappears some nights. Why she won’t let herself remember what happened that long-ago night on the boardwalk. Why she fell apart so completely.

Desperate for his forgiveness, she’s telling the whole story of the summer she nearly lost herself. She’s hoping he’ll understand as well as she now does how love—love for your family, love for that person who makes your heart beat faster, and love for yourself—can save you after all.

WHISPER TO ME was one of my most anticipated books of 2016 because it has a gorgeous cover and a super intriguing synopsis. Undoubtedly, when I got hold of this novel, I dug right in. Overall, I did enjoy this book, although it fell a little flat in the end.

We get introduced to Cassie, who, at the beginning of the novel, finds a severed foot on the beach. From there, a voice that only she hears essentially terrorizes her 24/7. While that is happening, a new boy moves in who Cassie slowly develops feelings for, and murders are happening everywhere. I thought this concept was really quite interesting and many of the experiences that Cassie went through made me feel chills.

The characters were also quite interesting. Cassie, first off, was a very intriguing character with the voice in her head, telling her what to do. Throughout the novel, there’s a lot of character development for Cassie, she starts out as being subordinate to the voice to being able to stand up for herself and the other people in her life. I also really enjoyed Paris’s character; I felt as if she really encapsulated a part of Cassie that could be more free regarding her dad and the voice and the death of her mother.

Although this book set up to be quite engrossing, by the end of the novel, I still felt as if I had more questions than when I started the book. I felt as if there were still a lot of open-ended questions and nothing really had an answer. I really just thought that this book led me into a circle and nothing was resolved by the end.

Despite that, the writing style was also captivating. The book is written in an email/letter style, talking to the boy Cassie liked and explaining her actions. It’s filled with little play-like conversations and blocked out words in place of curse words. Although the little bits like that made it interesting, it also was a tad difficult to read because the pages were filled with an unorthodox style, which can be engrossing or annoying depending on your reading preferences.

Overall, I thought this book had a great premise and a compelling setup for the characters’ growth and plot, but it fell dull in that I didn’t feel as if anything was resolved in the end. This book ended up offering more questions than answers for me, but if you enjoy interesting writing styles and a pretty open ending for your own interpretation, I recommend this book for you.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.

Have you read this book yet? Are you planning to? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!