Little Whispers

I get really excited when K.L. Slater has a new book coming out, and I trip over myself to request it on NetGalley. I even signed up in advance to the blog tour for this one as I have so much faith in her books. However, I’m afraid this was a bit of a miss and disappointed me somewhat. I’ve even had to pull out of the blog tour as I don’t think this review is the best one to promote it.
I really struggled with the book. It was very slow going, and I really felt like I was trudging through it. I had to force myself to get it read before today ended as I don’t like to be reading a book over the month’s end and into a new month (OCD!)
Janey is a very insipid character; she is naive and made some questionable decisions. She didn’t enamour herself to me at all, especially when the cool mums ignore her but then the next day are her besties. She was too over keen to be part of the ‘in’ crowd, and it made her appear pathetic.
We had a few tiny snippets of another story throughout the book. These were interesting and acted as little hooks, but as time went on, they weren’t often enough to be rememberable. I kept thinking I’d stumbled into a different book entirely when I did read them. Janey is also referring to a big secret, but every time she relays it to someone, we are not privy to any details. This was understandable throughout the book but at about 85% in it just became frustrating. It would have been nice to have been fed more and more of this over time to keep us interested.
I’m so used to being gripped by Slater’s books. I usually stay up until the small hours of the morning trying to get the book finished as I can’t put it down because it’s that fascinating. They are usually full of twists and surprises. This one, however, plodded on for about 90% of the book building the scene of Janey, her new life and her new friends. The twist and the ending of the story are crammed into the last 10%. If felt rushed, over-complicated and I had to reread a few paragraphs to really understand what was happening.
The book had a good premise and the twist at the end I didn’t see coming. The author had kept everything very much close to her chest. However, this wasn’t the usual standard that I expect and love from Slater. I wasn’t gripped until about 90% of the way in when at that point I just wanted the answers.
There were quite a few inconsistencies in the story as well; I hope these have been ironed out for the final proof. If not, it makes for very annoying reading. An example of one is that Janey says that Isaac has been at his new job for a couple of months now, but then in the next paragraph they have only been in their new lives for a week. He started his new job once they had moved to the new house so it can’t have been a few months and only a week. This is only one of the examples I can remember, but there were a few times when I stumbled over inconsistencies and small plot holes.
So, overall an interesting idea for a story I just wish there had been more to it to keep me interested and more invested in the characters and the storyline as a whole. Disappointing for a K.L. Slater book.