Reviews with content warning for Infertility - Șoaptele

Wow. It’s the drama of the suburbs. Infidelity and raising children. The moms clubs. All the secrets finally being revealed. It kept me hooked and I thought it was fascinating. Whitney’s twins magically disappearing was a plot hole And the only reason it’s not 5 stars!

Content Warnings

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.”

Content Warnings

sandysmith's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

3.75

A great read centering around 4 women's points of view. Whitney the career woman with 10 year old Xavier, and younger twins, Blair a stay at home mum who gave up ger successful career for her child Chloe, Rebecca a successful doctor trying to stay pregnant and Mara an elderly neighbour who lost her neurodiverse son. Neighbours, secrets, lies, and whispering bring these characters together. Xavier falls from his bedroom window, and the book explores how this happens. The men in the book are secondary characters, and their points of view are not written. It's a great psychological thriller about motherhood.

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ruth_power's review against another edition

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mysterious 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

3.5

Four different perspectives of motherhood. Slow-burning mystery. Flipped through the pages. Gripping!

Content Warnings

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.

Content Warnings

ledr0811's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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