Reviews with content warning for Grief - The Whispering Dark

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew

22 reviews

whynotreadwithalex's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense 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

5.0

Writing a review for a book that completely stole my heart is always a challenge. It's especially difficult to describe the ways in which this kind of book makes a reader feel seen -- not simply a story or cast of characters that you can relate to, but one that is so extraordinary that it reminds you why you fell in love with reading in the first place. This is one of those books for me.

Truth be told, I originally picked up this book because I wanted to read another book by Kelly Andrew -- Your Blood, My Bones -- that is set in the same universe and I didn't want to miss out on any important details. The plot intrigued me, but I wasn't expecting to be so completely swept up in the narrative that the story buried itself into my bones. I was surprisingly captivated, to say the least.

Lane and Colton...wow. Theirs is a story of heartbreaking tragedy, new hope fluttering to life in the darkest of places, and a tangled web of fate and lies and beautifully broken bits slowly mended by love and time. Their story is haunting...literally. It's achingly beautiful. It's horrifying, at times, and struggles with honesty and freedom amid power plays, paranormal agendas, and death that lingers. It's a masterpiece.

And the writing style is brilliant: wistful, sweeping, mysterious, unnerving, withholding, heart-wrenching, and unique. Amazing, truly amazing.

What you're getting:
--> from her POV, enemies-to-lovers; from his POV, he's loved her all his life
--> dark academia meets gender-bent Ella Enchanted vibes meets Hades and Persephone retelling/Beauty and the Beast (you decide which is which)
--> spooky spook galore: we've got creepy cult dudes, Wednesday (the TV show) thriller vibes, a multiverse to explore, and the dead...always lurking
--> deaf FMC with paranormal gifts x overprotective, working behind the scenes, secretive Mr. Darcy type MMC who is obsessed with her

If you can't tell, I absolutely loved this book and will be reading everything that Kelly Andrew writes. This is an immediate 5-star read for me, I cannot recommend it enough, and has easily made it to my FAVORITES shelf.

Fearless. Brilliant. Sweepingly romantic. Thrilling and mysterious. Creative and unique. Dark. Captivating. Aesthetic. Addicting. Beautiful.

Content Warnings

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

Content Warnings

ghost3_14159's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

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

Content Warnings

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.

Content Warnings

zazula's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.25

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piperclover's review against another edition

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I was so intrigued by this and was really excited to read a book with a deaf main character but I just can't click with any of it. I don't think the style is working for me so I'm not connecting to anything that's happening and I find myself being confused at the plot and at the flow of the story itself.

There's lots of scenes that are described in sentence fragments and it's meant to portray the feeling of being jarred and disoriented, only getting smashes of information, but it's just something that I can't process and I don't enjoy. I like the story itself but I'm over halfway through and I feel like nothing's happening even though there's a lot of plot happening.

I just don't think that forcing myself through it is going to make me enjoy it anymore when I've already been listening to it at 2.35 speed and I'm wishing to be done.

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bookcheshirecat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

“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.”

➽ The Whispering Dark is about Delaney Meyers-Petrov, a deaf girl who gets accepted into the prestigious Godbole University! This isn't your normal school, as the program teaches students to slip between worlds and every carefully selected student has a specific esoteric talent. Delaney has been feeling like there's something in the quiet and her supernatural aptitude gets her invited to Godbole. I liked that we're following a deaf main character who's trying to navigate school and struggling with the lack of disability accommodations. I found the world very intriguing, I'm always excited by the concept of parallel worlds and the story itself was very atmospheric. I definitely got some dark academia vibes! In general, the writing style was very detailed and lyrical, which I liked at first. The longer the book went on, the more tired I got of the overdescription of everything though.

➽ I wish we'd gotten more explanations about the magic system, as the story just throws us right into the action without bothering to establish any background on the world. I kept waiting for additional information, but they never came. It was also disappointing that the actual school life took a backseat to Delaney and Colton's investigations and romance. Delaney doesn't have any other meaningful connections. A lot of things seemed to happen off-page, as she's suddenly friends with her roommate, but we never see them connect to each other. They just exist to be Delaney's friends, but get no personality or time with her. It felt like their friendship was skipped over in favor of the romance.

➽ The main dynamic is between Delaney and Colton, but I found them frustrating. Colton almost died when he was 9 years old and ever since he's been different. He knows Delaney, as she was there for the incident, but is told to stay away from her at school. I like a forbidden romance, but the problem is that we don't really find out why he has to push her away. As much as I was intrigued by Delaney and Colton's dynamic the fact that he kept so much information from her got exhausting! I get that there were plot reasons for his constant lying, but it grated on my nerves how he never explains anything and still expects Delaney to follow him. Their relationship felt codependent at times and suffered from a clear lack of communication. In the very beginning, Colton is downright nasty to Delaney to keep her away and even later his behavior is pretty arrogant. The longer the relationship went on, the more offputting it was!

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annelihghh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Content Warnings

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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