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A review by paceamorelibri
Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey
2.0
[b:Whistle in the Dark|35068416|Whistle in the Dark|Emma Healey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1526499549s/35068416.jpg|56363875] begins with one of the most enticing premises of anything I've read all year: when Jen Maddox and her fifteen-year-old daughter Lana are away on holiday in the English countryside, Lana goes missing for exactly four days, and after she's found, she claims to have no memory of what happened to her. This book had all the potential in the world to be eerie and gripping and moving, but it sadly dropped the ball.
This is not a mystery about a girl's disappearance; at the heart of [b:Whistle in the Dark|35068416|Whistle in the Dark|Emma Healey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1526499549s/35068416.jpg|56363875] is Jen and Lana's fraught relationship, which feels almost claustrophobic. You want to take both characters by the shoulders and scream at them for their inability to communicate with one another. Which isn't a criticism - I thought the tension in this relationship was [b:Whistle in the Dark|35068416|Whistle in the Dark|Emma Healey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1526499549s/35068416.jpg|56363875]'s biggest strength, even if it wasn't the most pleasant reading experience.
I just felt like this book didn't quite know what it wanted to be. It was part crime thriller, part literary character study, and all the while just spinning its wheels, never really going anywhere. The same ideas are recycled ad nauseum in a sort of cyclical format that doesn't suit the kind of depth that Healey is trying to achieve here. I feel like there's a lot that could have been said about mental health, religious fanaticism, and motherhood, but none of this is fully realized. Instead we chronicle Jen's almost comical levels of paranoia as she over-analyzes every breath that Lana takes, which gets old after several hundred pages.
This also has some of the most trite dialogue I've ever read - this is one of those books where no one talks like an actual human being, but instead pontificates with the articulation of a philosophy scholar, speaking in bizarre abstractions and it ultimately detracts from the realism of their characters.
I think most readers are going to be very unhappy and underwhelmed by the ending, but I actually didn't mind it. I think it's important not to think of it as a twist or a reveal, necessarily, just kind of... a logical conclusion? I don't know. But I liked the way it was done and I liked the closure Jen was able to glean from that. I just wish it hadn't been such a drag to get to that point. I couldn't wait for this book to end.
Thank you to Harper and Emma Healey for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
This is not a mystery about a girl's disappearance; at the heart of [b:Whistle in the Dark|35068416|Whistle in the Dark|Emma Healey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1526499549s/35068416.jpg|56363875] is Jen and Lana's fraught relationship, which feels almost claustrophobic. You want to take both characters by the shoulders and scream at them for their inability to communicate with one another. Which isn't a criticism - I thought the tension in this relationship was [b:Whistle in the Dark|35068416|Whistle in the Dark|Emma Healey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1526499549s/35068416.jpg|56363875]'s biggest strength, even if it wasn't the most pleasant reading experience.
I just felt like this book didn't quite know what it wanted to be. It was part crime thriller, part literary character study, and all the while just spinning its wheels, never really going anywhere. The same ideas are recycled ad nauseum in a sort of cyclical format that doesn't suit the kind of depth that Healey is trying to achieve here. I feel like there's a lot that could have been said about mental health, religious fanaticism, and motherhood, but none of this is fully realized. Instead we chronicle Jen's almost comical levels of paranoia as she over-analyzes every breath that Lana takes, which gets old after several hundred pages.
This also has some of the most trite dialogue I've ever read - this is one of those books where no one talks like an actual human being, but instead pontificates with the articulation of a philosophy scholar, speaking in bizarre abstractions and it ultimately detracts from the realism of their characters.
I think most readers are going to be very unhappy and underwhelmed by the ending, but I actually didn't mind it. I think it's important not to think of it as a twist or a reveal, necessarily, just kind of... a logical conclusion? I don't know. But I liked the way it was done and I liked the closure Jen was able to glean from that. I just wish it hadn't been such a drag to get to that point. I couldn't wait for this book to end.
Thank you to Harper and Emma Healey for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.