Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Șoaptele by Ashley Audrain

44 reviews

katiejohns's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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sarahkate22's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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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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mamaofperfectpayton's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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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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kaylameaux's review against another edition

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

4.0

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princessxnicole's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

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katschkekat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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thatswhatshanread's review against another edition

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challenging 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

4.75

I’m gonna rate this how I did “The Push”, as I loved it just as much as her debut. The only thing keeping me from 5 stars is the both of them having very quick endings. 

WOW!!! An incredibly fascinating second novel from Ashley Audrain. I was immediately invested in the deep tangle of suburban domesticity between the three families at the helm of this story, and even the fourth family’s insights sprinkled throughout. Audrain commands your attention with every page, every insane detail that feels hot in your hands, like juicy but disturbing neighborhood  gossip you’re only so lucky to be privy too. Like you are one of the periphery moms, whispering about only the surface of the twisted, mangled iceberg. 

This is as much a novel about marriages and parent-child relationships under pressure as it is a novel of suspense. Which is to say, this isn’t exactly a thriller, but very much so an intense domestic drama that leaves you clutching at your pearls, as they say, as the characters’ lives unravel. A child in a coma, due to mysterious circumstances. His parents, his neighbors, none of them quite who they seem. Rumors everywhere. Lies as abundant as a cup full of sugar. 

I throughly enjoyed this one. I loved the intensity, the explicitness, the shock, every character interwoven into another in the most unexpected ways. This is a deliciously spiraling novel that makes you think a whole lot about the lives of those acquaintances around you that may be entirely different from what you only see from the end of the driveway. Or overheard from an open window…
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