Review: Whisper - Phoebe Kitanidis

Where I got it: ARC from One ARC Tours
Rating:  3.5 stars
Cover Rating: 4.5 stars (mmmmmm)
Genre: Young Adult
Publication Date: May 1, 2010
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Page Count: 281 p.

Joy has a gift. She can hear peoples desires. The other women in her family can too. Joy uses her power to help people, she always tries to give them what they want. Joy loves her gift, but her sister, Jessica, tells her it's a curse. Joy can't believe this about her gift, especially when Jessica just seems to try and make everyone miserable. But when Joy starts hearing peoples darker desires she wonders if maybe her sister was right. When she hears a whisper from her missing sister, she knows she has to save her, even if she has to get help from someone she barely knows but might be able to relate to.

I really enjoyed this book. The idea of Whispers(people's desires) is one I've had yet to read about in this recent paranormal outbreak. This was a great debut novel and I am looking forward to the rest of Joy's story, if there is in fact more to come. This book definitely needs a sequel though, to help explain a lot of what is missing from this first book. Also I feel like some of the characters could use some extra developing. The romance in this novel seemed pretty all of a sudden, though I guess fiction mimics life. Not all connections are nicely mapped out, but they didn't seem that connected at all until the end. I appreciate the growth Joy experienced throughout this novel and how she learned to stand up on her own. She seemed really clingy and pathetic in the beginning, so it was nice that she could grow up. Phoebe Kitanidis is an author to look out for. I feel like there will be many great things to come.

First Line: "My sister showed me how to Hear a Whisper when I was three."


Favorite Line: "We wasn't even a real spider."