camillefulwood 's review for:

The Whispers by Greg Howard

3.0

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This book was a rollercoaster of thought and emotion for me. I did not like it very much in the beginning and found some of the content to be quite mature for young audiences and/or questionable such as the parts about giving up one's soul to the "whispers." However, as the story progressed and wrapped up I found that overall I personally was captivated by the story and found it powerful as it touched on topics such as grief, trauma, bullying, etc. It is a coming of age story that I think many kids could relate to in one way or another. And even if not, the story itself is captivating and develops compassion and empathy in the reader. I would not necessarily put this book on a must-read list, but I certainly would not prevent my child from reading it. I think the story itself was very interesting and the ending was a sad turn-of-events that I did not see coming and had a stronger underlying message than I had originally anticipated. I do however think the recommended age for this book should be about 13-14 years old as I think that is more of the age group it will speak to and some of the content is too mature, sad, or scary for younger audiences. I really loved this author's style of writing and found myself laughing so many times at the internal thoughts of Riley, and yet crying at others. I appreciate how vulnerable the author was at the end of the book to tell the reader how this story was inspired by his own life experiences. I think the fact that this fictional story was based on his real-life experiences made it all the more powerful.