Book Review: ‘The Whispering Dark’ by Kelly Andrew
We start off season 4 of The Dark Academicals with ‘The Whispering Dark’ by Kelly Andrew. And as far as premieres goes, this episode (and this book) was strong. Full disclosure: I have a lot of love and a lot of time for ‘The Whispering Dark’.
If you want to hear us discuss ‘The Whispering Dark’ and its relationship with the Dark Academia genre, episode 4.1 is out today!
In case you haven’t heard of this book before, or you need a refresher, here’s the synopsis:
“Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she's Deaf. So, when she's accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she's excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start when she has an awkward encounter with a pretentious upperclassman, Colton Price, whom she has every intention of keeping her distance from.
Colton has been ordered to keep far away from the new girl, and the voices that call to her from the shadows. But the pull of her proves impossible to ignore, and he can't help but be fascinated by her unusual talents.
After a fellow student turns up dead, she and Colton are forced to form a tenuous alliance, plummeting down a rabbit hole of deeply buried university secrets. They soon find themselves up against something old and nameless, an enemy that threatens to tear them - and their forbidden partnership - apart.”
As we do on the podcast, I would also like to take a moment to highlight the potential content and trigger warnings for this book. If you want an in depth list, head over to this book’s Storygraph page here.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Death, child death, violence, muder, body horror.
I’m not sure if starting with a comparison will overshadow the rest of my review, but it feels appropriate. You’ll find that ‘The Whispering Dark’ is often compared to ‘Ninth House’ and ‘The Atlas Six’. I’m not so sure about the latter, 'we featured ‘The Atlas Six’ by Olive Blake on Season 2 of The Dark Academicals and neither of us were very enamoured with it.
Quick Thoughts
‘Ninth House’ by Leigh Bardugo, however, is a great comparison. If you like ‘Ninth House’ then I’m fairly confident yo will like ‘The Whispering Dark’. In fact, I think the characters are more accessible in ‘The Whispering Dark’, and the storyline easier to follow and fathom.
That’s no shade on ‘Ninth House, because it remains one of my all-time faves. But ‘The Whispering Dark’ has more of a classic YA Urban Fantasy feel which I was really excited to discover.
Characters
Lane is a great protagonist. It took me a little while to warm up to her. Something that we discuss in the podcast episode is how she can sometimes be passive to the action, and while authorial decisions to feature a deaf main character is brilliantly done, there are some descriptions and phrases that were overused and brought you back out of the text.
Cole? Great. Just great. I loved his arc and the way we found out more about his character as we made our way through the narrative. He’s got an old-school YA bad boy anti-hero vibe which both me and Sophie were delighted by.
The way the relationship developed between Lane and Cole was a lot of fun to watch unfold on the page. I don’t know if I would necessarily call it an enemies-to-lovers, but it’s along the same lines, so if that’s your jam, this will definitely delight you.
Overall
‘The Whispering Dark’ held me from start to finish. There are some scenes that took my breath away (I’m thinking about that elevator scene in particular), and others that genuinely spooked me. It’s got the right amounts of horror and intrigue, of romance and action, and I was very much a fan of the writing style from the beginning.
A sarisfying, twisty read with a great balance of emotional content and plot. I enjoyed it immensely.
Written by Sarah
