Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollin’s for the digital ARC!

This a YA thriller/mystery book based in a small California town where high school teenagers a part of the AV club in school. The AV club teacher goes missing and they work together to find her. The book itself is a light read and you really feel yourself loving all of the main characters. I hope to find out more about certain families in the book.

A light but interesting teen mystery centering around a group of high school misfits that make up their school’s AV Club and their search for their missing teacher. I really enjoyed this one.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for this digital arc in exchange for my honest review which is not affiliated with any brand.

I thought this was a really fun YA Mystery Thriller. I grew to love all the characters. I think a lot of young adults will really enjoy this one. It does touch on some heavy topics but I think it was done well. Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy of the arc in return for an honest review.

In my quest to work through my NetGalley queue, I started reading If You Can Hear This by Faith Gardner. I have another book by Ms. Gardner in my NetGalley queue as well, so I was hoping that I would enjoy this book. I did – immensely.

What do you get when you mix a group of misfit kids who make up an audio/visual club, a missing teacher, and an apathetic town? You get If You Can Hear This. And believe me, this is a book you won’t want to miss.

Our main characters – Posey, Sal, Jeremiah, Athena, Yash, and Lexy make up the Wild Pines High School AV Club. They each have their own unique perspectives on life and what’s happening.

Posey is a girl who came to Wild Pines from San Francisco. She’s the new kid – she’s weird, quite a bit on the bossy side, and to be honest, obnoxious. I found myself wanting to reach through the screen and swat her upside the head, telling her to relax.

Sal is an enigmatic character, about whom we find out quite a bit. He’s mysterious and can seem suspicious at times, but he’s got a good heart and he cares about people.

Jeremiah isn’t seen as much but he’s an interesting character, what we do get to see of him.

Athena is the actress of the group but she’s got her own issues. I liked her quite a bit because she seemed more real than most of the other characters.

Yash is another character who is more or less in the background – we find out bits and pieces about him, but not much.

Lexy is seen fairly often in If You Can Hear This, but she’s another background character whom we don’t learn a lot about. I do wish we’d learned a bit more about her – especially considering she’s an activist at heart.

I loved the plot for this book. A teacher goes missing and her students set out to figure out what happened to her and where she went. They also want to raise awareness as it seems no one in authority wants to actually do anything about the missing teacher. It shows what students can do when they set their minds to it. It also shows some of the realities of people being on social media and what can come of social media use.

I gave this book a solid four stars because I thought it was a really good YA Mystery/Thriller. The start was a bit slow and it took a few days for me to really get fully into the book, but once it got going, it was awesome. I can’t wait to read the other book by Ms. Gardner that is in my queue.

This is a quick read with a fun group of characters. It was hard not to root for the AV Club at Wild Pines High School. That being said, there was a lot of nothing going on in this book. Things were implied but in the end, literally nothing happened. It was a let down.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for approving this arc!

I'm going to keep this as straight to the point as possible. I did not enjoy the ending of this book AT ALL! The plotline was really interesting and I enjoyed all of the main AV Club characters, but the secondary cast and the overall mystery fell short. There was no suspenseful moments, no interesting plot twists, just nothing. This book gave me nothing!

Like the marketing lines say, this book is definitely one for those who liked A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. New to the small town, Posey Spade
wants to get friends and influence people so she joins the AV club headed by a cool teacher who promptly goes missing. Posey cannot let it alone and she gets the other members of the AV club to help her pursue leads that the deputy police officer will not. As she grows closer to one particular member of the AV club,Sal, who is unhoused, and the protégé of the missing teacher, Posey finds some disturbing clues. The daughter of the editor of the local newspaper, she cannot let this piece of investigative journalism grow cold.

If You Can Hear This follows Posey Spade and her AV Club peers as they try to solve the disappearance of their teacher in the small town of Wild Pines.

I read this whole book in one day because I simply had to know what happened. I really enjoyed the development of the mystery and how it all came together! The characters were three dimensional, and interacted with each other (and their world) as teenagers would. Going in, I was a bit worried that "AV Club solves a mystery" would be too far fetched of a premise, but the small town setting and Poesy's dad being a journalist helped sell me on it. The characters are plenty smart, which minimizes readers' frustrations, but not investigative geniuses, which keeps the plot developments reasonable.

I did feel like this book ended too quickly. Once the mystery was solved, it wrapped up almost immediately. I would've liked to sit with the characters a little longer and learn their thoughts on everything. I hope there's a sequel in the works! It would be fun to see this little team do some more investigation. I was also a bit thrown off by the town's cult. It served as a decent red herring, but was surprisingly disconnected from the rest of the story's events, unlike basically everything else.

I did really enjoy Posey as a character, however. She's neurodivergent, and struggles to connect with most of her peers. Her character development throughout the story and growing relationship with the rest of the AV club was heartwarming, and I think awkward girls will relate to Posey (I know I certainly did). I like that there's some tension in the story, but it's not overly stressful. There's plenty of humor, and the book never gets super dark.

Overall, If You Can Hear This is a fun and easy to read YA book that fans of scrappy sleuthing and ragtag misfits will love.

IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS by Faith Gardner
⭐️ rating: 7.5/10

read if you like:
👧 young adult mysteries
🌫️ missing people
📓 high school drama
🕵🏻 strong women

summary:
This book is about Posey, a high school student and aspiring journalist, who moves from San Francisco to a rural town called Wild Pines. She joins the AV Club in an effort to pursue her journalistic interests and make friends, when the lead teacher for the club, Mrs. Moses, disappears. Posey rallies the rag tag group into a true investigative team, focused on finding their teacher and understanding why she vanished.

This is definitely a YA book, but for fans of Holly Jackson’s books, you’ll love this one. While they solve a missing person case, the story is lighthearted and humorous. The characters are all quirky and unique, and I grew to love Posey, a girl desperate for justice and most importantly, to fit in. I would have loved to see a few more clues throughout the story, building up to a bigger reveal at the conclusion. It’s a quick read, and even though it wasn’t my all time favorite ending, I would love to see a sequel with the same characters tackling another crime. Even with this though, I love Holly Jackson’s books so much and this follows such a similar theme.

Thanks to Harper Collins and Net Galley for the advanced copy. For fans of A GOOD GIRLS GUIDE TO MURDER and THE CHEERLEADERS, check this out when it releases on November 19!

Fascinating thriller!
Hear the full review on It’s Lit~ Book Talks this Saturday https://t.co/CYJGLU7IYb

A reminder will also be advertised in November.

I haven't read much by this author but I won't be able to to say that for much longer. This story makes me want to devour their entire blacklist. I was enthralled with every page.

Think Good Girl's Guide to Murder with a (seemingly) neurodivergent character. I love Posey's enthusiasm and her focused nature. I thought the characters in the AV Club provided a great foil for Posey, and seeing her relationship with Sal develop was satisfying. The ending surprised me--a feature I love in a good mystery.

It took me a few chapters to get into this book, initially. The characters were frustrating, yet the plot was incredibly compelling - so I continued. This story truly opens up and quickly becomes “unputdownable.” Those characters that I considered “frustrating” became frustrating in the best of ways. The group of students (with seemingly nothing in common) in the AV club all have attributes that make them essential to the group. This is important since they have tasked themselves with solving their beloved teachers disappearance. There are many hurdles and pushback from people and police for suspicious reasons, but these students are determined to continue. I’m truly hoping for a sequel. There were a couple of interesting subplots that would make great stories on their own. I definitely recommend this book.

"I thought this was really well written and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I think it will find readers at our library, so we will definitely be purchasing for the collection.

Decently-plotted mystery. Loved the lack of a romantic relationship, because I think the character was far more human with her explanation about that.

A cozy mystery with a neat cast of characters -- the school misfits and the new girl in town. The story moves along nicely with leads and dead ends, as the high school students attempt to solve the mystery of their missing teacher.

Recommend for lovers of mystery, YA, or someone looking for an easy read that keeps you hooked.