The Whispers - Ashley Audrain - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Ashley Audrain

GENRE: Domestic Suspense.

PUBLICATION DATE: June 6, 2023

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary domestic suspense about four families and an event that reveals their truth. Think ‘Desperate Housewives’ meets ‘Big Little Lies’. Contains all the staples of this genre: unlikeable characters, unreliable narrators, OTT proceedings, a multitude of secrets, and an abundance of questionable behaviour. An entertaining ride as long as you know what to expect.

Keeping my review somewhat vague as it is best to go in blind.

Plot Preview:

Four families lives close to each other in the suburbs. The only thing common to them is the street they stay on. Their financial capability, the size of their houses, their professional situations, and their personal/marital state of affairs varies.

Now, the ten-year-old son of one of the couples is in coma after a fall from his bedroom window late at night. This event is the trigger for many discoveries and revelations.

The story comes to us from the third-person point of view of the four women of the above families (each a different kind of mother with a distinct mothering problem) over the course of a week, though there are plenty of flashbacks as well.

If you have watched shows like ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Big Little Lies’, then you can expect the same kind of content from this book. It is a total page-turner, not in a ‘Wow! This prose is marvellous!’ kind of way but in a ‘Wow! These people are nuts!’ kind of way. So if you are ready to toss the requirement for likeable characters and relatable human behaviour out the window, this novel is for you.

If you are the kind of reader who needs likeable characters in your fictional picks, steer clear of Ashley Audrain’s works. All the adult characters are toxic to varying levels. Some appear to have redeeming qualities, until we learn that the truth is something else altogether. The only characters towards whom you might feel some sympathy are the children of these families.

Given that our narrators are women and that the key suspense revolves around a little boy and the circumstances behind his fall, much of the drama centres around marriage and parenting. Whether working mothers or stay-at-home-mothers, wannabe mothers or frustrated mothers, the book explores all dramatic angles of mothers and mothering from the perspective of these slightly-bitchy, highly-judgemental women.

The four female leads might have varied professional and personal backgrounds, but they have one aspect in common: they all believe their decisions and choices to be right even when the world around them crumbles. As you can guess, this adds the ‘masala’ to this domestic suspense plot. (At times, too much masala in the form of hyper drama, spicy scenes, and crude words.) We probably know milder versions of such ladies in real life. But as these are fictional, every flaw is focussed upon and magnified. After a point, reading the story feels almost voyeuristic. I wish the language had been a bit toned down. The domestic drama was popcorn-thrilling enough, but the vulgarities brought down my enjoyment. Inserting crass words to highlight the thinking of one particular character might have still been understandable as it went with their brash personality, but seeing it for another character was off-putting.

As is usual in the domestic genre, the male characters hardly get anything to do for the most part. They are there mainly for physical appeal and marital tension.

Remembering the characters and their families might seem a bit overwhelming at the start, but the author keeps the writing crisp and the character backgrounds detailed and distinct. As such, it is easy to follow the storyline without muddling up the cast. However, the story does go back and forth several times, with the time references coming in somewhat vague points such as “September” or “Nine hours before”. Easy to understand, but might be tricky to keep track, especially on audio.

The character-focussed nature of the plot means that the pacing is on the slower side, though I didn’t find it slackening at any point. However, my engagement level wasn’t the same throughout. The first 60-70% of the book was OTT, but to the level expected in this genre. The final 30-odd% went OTT of OTT, if you get what I mean. With the abundance of sudden new revelations, ad hoc behavioural changes in characters, and exaggerated reactions in these chapters, my interest and investment in the outcome dipped somewhat. The final scene is a good one, though.

I had thoroughly enjoyed this author’s debut work, the mind-blowing psychological drama named ‘The Push’. Rereading my review made me realise that both books contain several aspects in common even beyond being books about problematic mothers. Both have a stark, filter-free depiction of the travails of motherhood. Both contain no wasted lines justifying the abhorrent behaviour of the characters. (They just are the way they are!) Both offer an excellent study on human psychology. And both are best read going in blind. (Oh, and both aren’t thrillers but tagged as such on Goodreads – no idea why!)

However, while I was quite blown away by ‘The Push’, ‘The Whispers’ left me merely entertained. I think the main reason for the diluted response this time is that there is nothing innovative in this book. ‘The Push’ actually pushed the boundaries of intergenerational trauma with its complex narrative structure and the clever use of the second-person writing. ’The Whispers’, with its OTT suburban families and situations, feels like standard domestic fare in comparison, though it handles the content decently enough.

Overall, this is a popcorn-entertainer book in the domestic suspense-drama category. It might not offer you thought-provoking quotes or lyrical prose or realistic scenarios, but if you enjoy mindless soap-opera-style entertainment that makes you feel better about yourself (and your spouse and your kids and your neighbours and your life in general), you might enjoy this one. Pick it up after tossing aside your logical cap and your need for normalcy and believability. Do note that the plot has several triggers related to pregnancy, parenting and matrimony.

3.75 stars. (4 stars for most of the book, but the final quarter was more like a 3.5.)

My thanks to Penguin Random House - Michael Joseph for providing the DRC of “The Whispers” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.