Realities can be uncomfortable. 
Author Ashley Audrain @ashleyaudrain again takes readers past comfort zones in The Whispers, much like in her debut, The Push.
Thank you to @penguinrandomca and @netgalley for my eARC for review!
The Whispers explores womanhood, motherhood, and associated aspects that aren't often spoken of or acknowledged. 
We meet Blair, Whitney, Rebecca and Mara; neighbours by geography, but in many ways worlds apart.
This is a book heavy on character narrative. It takes place over one week, with some chapters telling of the past that made the women who they have become.
⚠️ Trigger warnings should be noted here, especially miscarriage, infidelity, child injury, and death. 
It's an intriguing, intense and specifically-paced read, and often not an easy one. 
It is distressing, the ways parents and children can break each other. Recommended.
For release on June 6.

Ashley Audrain is quickly becoming the expert of great endings! The Whispers, like The Push, had one of these and I wanted to speed through my reading to see how it all ended. Very satisfying!

After pre-teen Xavier falls from his bedroom window late at night, his mother Whitney sits by his bedside steadily as he is in a coma. Whitney and her husband Jacob are close with the other neighbours and in this story we meet each set of neighbours and discover they each have their own issues. Questions are raised about how a young boy falls out a third storey window in the middle of the night when he should be sleeping. 

I loved the older neighbour Mara who came from Portugal with her husband years ago and had a son with some developmental disabilities that her husband didn’t manage well. She was a quiet character with a heartbreaking story. 

Audrain has written a good mix of likeable but mostly unlikeable characters. Hints at the individual storylines were dropped effortlessly into the bigger story and created tension. 

I did find it a little bit tricky to keep the three women’s husbands separate in my mind and often referred to my notes. The men weren’t of importance in this story and I think that is why the author didn’t build their characters. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this one and look forward to whatever Ashley Audrain writes next.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinrandomca for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. The Whispers comes out June 6, 2023.