Book Review: Whisper by Phoebe Kitanidis

Title: Whisper

Author: Pheobe Kitanidis

Pages: 288

Received from: ATWTs

Summary:

I’d love a cup of coffee. I wish she knew how pretty she was. I wish I could drop this kid in the dryer sometimes. I just want her to be happy. I hope she didn’t find out what Ben said about her. I wish I knew how many calories were in a bite of muffin…

Joy is used to hearing Whispers. She’s used to walking down the street and instantly knowing people’s deepest, darkest desires. She uses this talent for good, to make people happy and give them what they want. But for her older sister, Jessica, the family gift is a curse, and she uses it to make people’s lives—especially Joy’s—miserable. Still, when Joy Hears a frightening whisper from Jessica's own mind, she knows she has to save her sister, even if it means deserting her friends, stealing a car and running away with a boy she barely knows—a boy who may have a dark secret of his own.

So we have Joy, this chick who's, you know, the typical Follower not a Leader with the Super Cool Best Friends but is herself Pretty Plain. But, wait, she's NOT plain! She's special! She can hear your THOUGHTS AND DESIRES (AT THE SAME TIME!!!)

Alright, so her family calls these Whispers, and many--like Joy and her mother--try exponentially hard to help brighten people's day with their "gift". But then there are others in her family who have gone crazy because of their Hearing or, in her aunt's case, lost it completly. But Joy, true to her name, is optimistic. Despite her sister Jessica's (lamely dubbed Icka by...well, everyone) warnings, Joy believes she can do good with her gift. In fact, she really has no choice; whenever she can't make someone happy, she irritatingly feels like shit for days until she like saves a puppy or something.

I'm gonna be honest with you: I did not care for Joy at all. She was seriously everything I hate about a person; spineless, codependant on her friends, boy-crazy, blind to anything she can't Hear, way too eager to please...it just all mixed together to make a very unappealing heroine. I mean, for gods sake, get a grip. Its like the girl has become so dependant on her Hearing that she's unable to actually get a clue as to what a persons thinking without it. She can't read people at all without her supermagicalpowers, and its just frikken annoying that she gets so upset if she can't fulfill the slightest whim of her classmates. For example, when she received a rose that looks kinda dirty-ish on her birthday and leaves it on her desk, and her friend sitting beside her thinks idly "I'd wish she'd get that thing off the table", you know what she does? She picks it up, walks over to the garbage and throws it out, right in front of the boy who gave it to her! I mean, REALLY? You can't just scoot it into your backpack? Stick it in your pocket? Make your own flipping decision? No? Your just going to crush a guy's feelings because your bitchy friend had a flyaway thought about it? YOU ARE EVERYTHING IN THOSE PSA VIDEOS, JOY!



So, that's my major complaint. Joy is an ignorant yeller-belly, who listens to her mommy way to religiously, has no mind of her own and is completly devoid of all sense of self until she starts Hearing the bad crap. It was irritating.

In fact, I disliked pretty much every character except--ironically--Jessica (I refuse to call her Icka, because its a really stupid-ass nickname, even if it is supposed to be insulting). She was my kind of girl, straight to the point and wonderfully Stickin' It To The Man. She was the one I related to, the cast-aside, isolated pessimist with a chip on her shoulder and an attitude fit for any teenager. I loved Jessica.

Beside the characters, there was the issue of--and I can.not. stress this enough--REALISM.

As we all know--whether we know we know or not--the human thought process is a very scattered and unorganized phenomina. Very rarely does one have the dicipline to think a single sentence in complete coherency, picture something without flickering to another image, much less a self-absorbed, rather idiotic group of teenagers. How am I going to believe thoughts like, "I wish I had a bran muffin" or "I wish she wouldn't wear all that makeup, raccoon-style, all over her pretty face" would come out of anyones cerbral cortex? And I'm being pretty generous, considering I COULD be bringing up how unbelievable the dialogue itself was. But I'm not.

Overall, I was not impressed with Whisper. But I did finish, which is saying something.

Rating: 3 out of 10