Reviews with content warning for Dementia - The Whispering Dark

Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew

11 reviews

kc_louisa's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-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? It's complicated

3.25

For most of the book I was lost and confused but once I started to understand what was happening I didn't want to put it down, it's a slow starter but so worth the read

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kassidyreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

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vaguelyredhead'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? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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ceruleanshelves's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

“I dragged myself out of Hell to you.”

this was the perfect book to start october off with dark academia, shadow-hiding creatures, eeriness, yearning romance, missing students, some YA horror and a little trip thru the dimensions.

lane is tired of being treated with kid gloves her whole life after losing her hearing as a kid, and she's burning to prove what she can be. she enrolls at the elusive but selective godbole university and quickly discovers she had good reason to be afraid of the dark growing up.

i love a gothic/e-girl fmc and i loved lane's tenacity. she navigates this new academic world of paranormal with determination and refuses to back down. i really connected w her sense of climbing uphill when you feel like everyone is constantly 10 steps ahead already.

“She wanted to be defined. Not by the silence between her ears or her fear of the dark, but by the sum of her achievements. Not by what she couldn't do, but by what she could.”

colton price is the golden boy of godbole, but he wasn't always this way. after a casual death and resurrection as a kid, he has a few secrets of his own - one of them being that he's had his eye on lane ever since he came back.

i lovedddddddd colton omg. off the bat he reminded me a bit of preston from a study in drowning, and the more we dived into his character the more he became the hero of the story for me. nothing gets me in a romance like a pathetically yearning man and colton has a phd in it.

“He couldn’t help it. He went where she led, like a paper kite on a string. He was hopelessly caught, twisted in her branches. His line tangled. His spine splintered. His sail all in tatters. There was no clean way to work himself free.”

i also really enjoyed the side characters, they all felt very specific to me and real. even hayes who doesn't have the biggest part stuck out as a type of person i could pin down in my real life circles.

i think this is the first book i've read with the leading character being Deaf, so it was a very new reading experience for me. it esp hits different in OwnVoices writing bc there's details that you just know as the reader are incredibly specific experiences for the writer.

the writing was very atmospheric and the setting was exactly what i wanted to get me into the spooky halloween season, the perfect marriage of dark academia and supernatural horror.

“Howe University looked like everything Septembers were meant to embody—like bricks and books and new beginnings. It smelled like it, too. Fresh-cut grass and petrichor, coffee grounds and vanillin and the faint, autumnal smack of sour apples.”

a magic school is of course so much fun, though the focus leans more into the mystery and romance which is fine, but i always love to get more into magic system and school details. i think in this case though knowing less worked from lane's perspective of being out of the loop when she arrived, as well as the Priory group really winging it.

“It was incredibly naive of Whitehall,” he said, confessing what he could, “to think we could pass freely between worlds and not expect something uninvited to follow us home.”

there is a tiny bit of gore and body horror, but at a very chill YA level and easy to skim over if needed. as someone who's a bit more queasy when it comes to that, i was totally fine with it.

my only complaint is i want more of everything! what i would give for an epilogue novella 😭

this was my first book by kelly andrew and it did not disappoint! i'm really excited to get into her other books now.

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kamilahlove's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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takarakei's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

(reread) tbh the audio narration was just ok (no difference between POV voices) BUT I love this book so, just read a physical copy!

The ROMANCE *screams*
Deaf MC
Dark academia
A little spooky
A lot mysterious
Dual POV

My original review:
This book will keep you on questioning everything until the end it's super mysterious. You're gonna be like "wtf is going on" for 80% of the book, but in the best way possible.

THE ROMANCE.
What are these YA Fantasy Romance authors doing to me???? I have *feelings* How do they keep everything so PG but I am sweating?! IT'S SO GOOD.

Protect Colton at all costs. That is all.

If you're a fan of: Belladonna by Adalyn Grace (new adult) or Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (NOT YA) I think you'll really enjoy this.

IDK where to even put the spice cause it's completely 'closed door' if anything even really happens it's vague in the most beautiful way. So 1.5-2/5 🌶️??

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bibliomania_express's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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sylvestra's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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skylar_cr_wolf's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

“Death is part of life. Nothing is permanent. Nothing stays. Everything comes to an end, that’s just the way it goes.”

This is something you would believe. Even Delaney believed it for a while. A long while. But does life really stop with death?

While you follow her on her journey to unravel not just the truth by finding an answer to this particular question maybe, you’re also meeting Colton, someone who will keep secrets till his last breath. Or in this case simply even to the end.
And honestly, I like this. They both evolve throughout the story but Colton still remains with secrets of his own.

He is also not your average dark, mysterious guy with a sweet spot for the female main protagonist. No. He is literally a dead person with questionable morals, maybe even only a shadow of himself at the end. Colton isn’t becoming morally grey. His morals have always been a little off because the laws of life do not necessarily apply to him anymore.

I must say, I think I like this about him. Or about this story in general. You will get answers to questions and yet you won’t be able to solve all of the secrets.
I am surprised how quickly I read this, to be honest. Usually I need more than a week to read ~400 pages but this one really had me in a grip there. I can’t pinpoint why it did not turn out to be 5 stars or more than solid 4. But maybe this is just another question which I cannot answer and won’t possibly. Which is fine. I liked the book a lot nonetheless.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Delaney is a post-lingual Deaf girl who sometimes hears the shadows whispering. She gets into a university whose stated purpose is to teach its students to traverse between realities. Colton is a student who briefly died when he was a child, meeting Delaney briefly at the time. When they meet again on campus, she doesn’t recognize him but is drawn to him anyway, while he instantly knows her and can’t keep his distance. They begin spending time together, then the lines are blurred further when another student dies.

There’s a consistent theme of ableism, mainly but not only from professors who don’t know Delaney is deaf (because they didn’t read the emails alerting them). She’s navigating this new space and deciding how much she’d rather deal with not being able to usefully hear in the moment or with overt ableism once people know she’s deaf. Whether she’s using her implant and what she does or does not hear is important throughout, and is used to great effect once things start getting spooky.

The worldbuilding is sparse, most of the details are atmospheric and unexplained until late in the book. The specific answers and explanations (when they finally arrived) wrapped up pretty much everything I wanted to know. I enjoy vibe-heavy books that leave me interested but confused for long stretches, so this was a deeply satisfying read for me. Colton’s secrets (and those he keeps for others) are hinted at but not revealed early, keeping the reader and Delaney equally in the dark for much of the story.

For a book with parallel worlds there aren’t many descriptions of traversals, though there are more towards the end. I like how much the focus is on Delaney piecing things together and trying to make it through her classes, and on her dynamic with Colton. I often enjoy books with mysterious and brooding guys, and this delivered.

Heavy on vibes, supported by a delicate but satisfying plot, don’t miss THE WHISPERING DARK.

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