Whisper: Review

Synopsis: Joy is used to hearing Whispers. She's used to walking down the street and instantly knowing people's deepest, darkest desires. She uses this talent for good, to make people happy and give them what they want. But for her older sister, Jessica, the family gift is a curse, and she uses it to make people's lives - especially Joy's - miserable. Still, when Joy Hears a frightening whisper from Jessica's own mind, she knows she has to save her sister, even if it means deserting her friends, stealing a car and running away with a boy she barely knows - a boy who may have a dark secret of his own.


Details: "Whisper" by Phoebe Kitanidis, 288 pages, 4 stars on Amazon.


My Thoughts: First, the cover is amazing. I love the wispy depiction of a Whisper, and the subdued colors are brilliant for this book.


I love urban fantasies, especially when these fantasies don't include vampires, werewolves, fairies, unicorns, dinosaurs (actually, show me a dinosaur book and I will show you eternal devotion), and "Whisper" was right on the dot. Joy's power sounds really neat, but Kitanidis did a good job of demonstrating how every gift can be seen as a curse. When I first started the book, I was thinking how nice it would be to have the ability to hear people's desires, but then I realized that sometimes you're better off not knowing exactly what your friends think about you.


The book was suspenseful and well-written, but I would have liked to learn more about Joy's compulsion to make people happy. A few times, it was mentioned that she gets horrible stomach pains when she fails to help people get their desires, but it never really explained how she deals with this when she's, for example, in a crowd. Also, how does she manage to stop the Whispers from drowning out everything? Aren't people constantly harboring some desire or other?


I also feel like the story could have gone more in-depth with the characters. I never really felt like I got to know Joy or Jamie that well. Other than that, "Whisper" was amazing, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA. 4 smiles out of 5!