Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - The Whispers

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

22 reviews

estraat's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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ariana3's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was way better than I expected! I read it really quickly and enjoyed it more than I anticipated. When you think about it, the plot isn't very deep or complex, but the way the author tells the stories about these families in the neighborhood just sucked me in. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the moms/neighbors.
Plot summary:

Four families live on this one street - 3 are friends and one is an OG outcast house that others are waiting to tear down and buy the land to build a new house. One family has the aesthetically pleasing wife with a powerhouse job, but she's a terrible mother with anger problems. This wife, Whitney's, best friend across the street is Blair. Blair is the perfect wife, turning a blind eye to her husband's obviously wandering eyes, and perfect mother to their daughter. Whitney and Blair envy each other, but Blair is unaware of Whitney's envy of Blair being the perfect mother. The 3rd family - Rebecca lives in the neighborhood, picture-perfect marriage and intense job of ER doctor. She desperately wants kids but has had 5 miscarriages. Whitney's oldest son and most challenging (to her) child falls from his 3rd story window. The book delves into what may have happened. In a nutshell- Blair thinks her husband is having an affair with Whitney. He's not, but he is a cheater that she just stays ignorant to. Whitney is a huge cheater, just to feel like she isn't trapped in her life of being a mom when she doesn't want to be. So a twist is that she isn't having an affair with Blair's husband, but with Rebecca's husband!!!! The supposedly sweet, kind, doting, affectionate husband! Whitney's son saw them having some wild sex on the patio one night, he yelled out for them to stop, and he fell out of his window. Whitney and her son had an argument that night so everyone, including her husband, thought that Whitney had pushed him because she can have explosive angry moments. In the Epilogue, her son is awake and fine and alive. She's desperate to show him she's still around and she didn't leave like she threatened before he fell out the window. He agrees to talk, it's a super tender moment. Bringing the book to a happy ending. Then basically the last line is the son saying "what will happen to you when I tell everyone what you did." 🎤⬇️ If I was a mom I feel like this would break my heart. But since I'm not, this feels perfectly calculated, cruel as only kids could be, and definitely not what i expected!!!!!!!

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smcompton13's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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morganpsmith's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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jennabeck13's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.5/5)

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

About 325 pages

The Whispers tells the stories of four women (Whitney, Rebecca, Blair, and Mara) living on Harlow St. Mara is an older woman who feels disconnected from her young neighbors and her husband. Blair is the picture-perfect stay-at-home mom, but lately, she's felt a sense of longing for something more. Rebecca is an extremely successful ER doctor who desperately wants to become a mother but has suffered several miscarriages. And Whitney is a career-driven woman with three kids that she isn’t very interested in. Rumors are continuously whispered on their street. Especially when Whitney is caught screaming at her son, Xavier, at a neighborhood barbecue. The whispers get louder when months later, Xavier is hospitalized after “falling” out of his bedroom window. As we read about what happened in the months leading up to the incident and the days after, we learn these four women are more entangled than they seem.

This was a solid mix between a family drama and a thriller that I couldn’t put down. The pacing in the beginning was slow but picked up dramatically about halfway through. I loved trying to figure out the deeper connections between the women, and Audrain did a terrific job building a lot of tension in the book. She also tackled a lot of the complexities of womanhood in an impactful matter. Her other book, The Push, is currently on my shelf and I’m excited to hopefully read that one soon!

Favorite Quote: “They were broken, but they had not shattered together.”

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zosiablue's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I truly think Audrain is a horror writer who hasn't yet embraced the genre. This is ostensibly a domestic drama that focuses on an incident where a child falls out a window, which unravels a series of secrets and affairs and betrayals. And I appreciate all the different kinds of motherhood she portrays (and I think actual parents would appreciate it more). But she's riding the line between the domestic drama and straight-up gory horror and I want her to go all the way. The genre mashup could work, but it doesn't here - it's whiplash instead of clever. But the potential is there.

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ameliasgigi68's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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_kristinsworld's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Envy, lies and secrets are revealed in the 3 days following a 10 year old boy’s tragic fall from his bedroom window as members of the neighborhood speculate whether it was truly an accident.

I liked the author’s storytelling but I found the majority of the book to be pretty boring. This was surprising for me since I absolutely loved her debut novel, The Push. This story is a slow burn with a strong beginning but the conclusion just didn’t feel worthy of the buildup. I did enjoy some of the messiness between the main characters though. I would consider this more of a domestic/neighborhood drama than an actual thriller. The most suspenseful part was the very last sentence.

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bella_cavicchi's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Oof. This was startling in its bluntness, Audrain daring to say what I think so many mothers/wives/women fear to state aloud. Admittedly. I lost interest in viewing it as a thriller so much as a character study in the domestic sphere. To view the last sentence in that vein is chilling (!).

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fawns's review against another edition

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dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Unlikeable characters with a trigger warning for practically ever chapter. Writing is fine but this is a traumatic book that I couldn't stop reading. Complicated!

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