Author: Lisa Unger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new novel is reward aplenty!
Today I'm reviewing a pair of short stories (actually novelettes, but they felt like short stories, being short and a fast read!) by Lisa Unger, The Whispers and The Burning Girl, which is a kind of a sequel to the first. Both of these were rather unsatisfactory in that they had no real ending, although the first (this one, The Whispers) was an acceptable read. The other wasn't. I'll explain why in that review.
Let me say up front that I don't believe in spirits or visions, or gods or ghosts, or any of this supernatural stuff, such as witchcraft or demons or angels or flying saucers or Sasquatch - none of that! - because there is no actual real evidence for any of it, whereas there's ample evidence of people's endless capacity for self-delusion. I do love good fiction about those things though, if it's told well, and has some interesting characters and events.
The story is about Eloise Montgomery, a married woman with two daughters in high school, Amanda and Emily who are as different as chalk and cheese, and a loved and devoted husband, Alfie. The four are out in the car one day driving off to school and work when a trucker falls asleep at the wheel, crosses the line, and sideswipes the car, killing the two family members who were on that side: Alfie, and Emily.
Note that this isn't much of a spoiler because this happens right at the beginning of the story and is more like a prologue to it. See, writers? You can incorporate your prologue right into chapter one! Lisa Unger has proved it! NO MORE PROLOGUES!!!
Eloise is a weak person and this is too much for both her and Amanda. Amanda shuts down, refusing to speak for weeks. Eloise almost shuts down herself, but hangs on by a thread for no other reason than Amanda. Soon, Eloise begins seeing ghosts, or visions, or future events. It's not really very clear exactly what's happening or what she's seeing. She hears whispers in the air, hence the title of the story. She does not handle any of this at all well.
The main event here is that of a young girl who is alone and cold, and appears to have fallen down a well. Eloise sees her, like she's with her and like she is her, and becomes convinced that this girl won't survive another night. She calls in her vision to the cops and the girl is discovered alive. Then Eloise, like she doesn't have enough on her plate already, has to deal with the publicity surrounding these events.
This novel doesn't really end. It simply kinda stops, like that that's the end of episode one in a TV show - or more accurately, like it's the end of the first segment of the show and now we're cutting to a commercial break. I understand that this is part of a trilogy and I think it's sad that not only can we not get away from trilogies, but that it looks like it's come to the point where we're now splitting a single novel into three novellas just so we can have a trilogy. That's simply warped, to me.
I didn't appreciate that, because it seemed like the reader is being teased for a series, when the events could have been adequately related in one book. It felt a bit like a bait-and-switch in some ways, being promised a story and getting only an episode, and that's not something I'm up for at all, but having said that, the story itself was well told and had some interesting events, and interesting people, so I'm rating this one a worthy read.
Where I felt this went wrong was in killing off both the husband and the daughter. I think it would have made for a much more entertaining read if both daughters had survived. Actually it probably would have also worked better if the husband had survived and the whole family had to deal with the change in Eloise, but that's not what we got. What we did get was just enough for me.
