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A review by thepetitepunk
I Hope You're Listening by Tom Ryan
4.0
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 stars
WOW. This needs to be turned into a movie immediately!
Ten years ago, Dee Skinner witnessed the kidnapping of her childhood friend, Sibby Carmichael. Throughout the years, there has been no signs of Sibby, and all Dee has been left with are the haunting memories of being in the forest when her friend was taken. Now, in order to deal with pain, Dee runs an anonymous podcast called Radio Silent, where she discusses missing person cases and encourages her listeners to help her solve these cases. Shockingly, another girl goes missing--from the family who moved into Dee's childhood house. With potential links to Sibby's case, Dee gets a chance to finally find some answers after all these years.
I Hope You're Listening was fantastic. It's a mystery/thriller that will keep you on your toes, especially as the book advances. Dee's pain and trauma are written respectfully and while this isn't the first book I've read about a secret podcast, it was still entertaining. I also appreciated the lovely queer representation. There were no conversations about gay suffering and woes about coming out--it was just two girls who liked each other and decided to be girlfriends. I thought this was quite refreshing and the subtleness worked well with the story since the main focus was on Dee finding out more about Sibby. The ending was far from disappointing; I was pleasantly surprised with how nicely things wrapped up.
I did think that the beginning was a bit slow (it definitely took me a few tries to get into this book) and there were some elements of the plot that were jumped into too quickly, but overall, I thought Tom Ryan's approach to a thriller was excellent. Again, the beginning took some time to get into, but after pushing passed that, I read the last 60% of the book in one sitting. Would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in YA thriller/mystery, especially one with LGBTQ representation!
4.5 stars
WOW. This needs to be turned into a movie immediately!
Ten years ago, Dee Skinner witnessed the kidnapping of her childhood friend, Sibby Carmichael. Throughout the years, there has been no signs of Sibby, and all Dee has been left with are the haunting memories of being in the forest when her friend was taken. Now, in order to deal with pain, Dee runs an anonymous podcast called Radio Silent, where she discusses missing person cases and encourages her listeners to help her solve these cases. Shockingly, another girl goes missing--from the family who moved into Dee's childhood house. With potential links to Sibby's case, Dee gets a chance to finally find some answers after all these years.
I Hope You're Listening was fantastic. It's a mystery/thriller that will keep you on your toes, especially as the book advances. Dee's pain and trauma are written respectfully and while this isn't the first book I've read about a secret podcast, it was still entertaining. I also appreciated the lovely queer representation. There were no conversations about gay suffering and woes about coming out--it was just two girls who liked each other and decided to be girlfriends. I thought this was quite refreshing and the subtleness worked well with the story since the main focus was on Dee finding out more about Sibby. The ending was far from disappointing; I was pleasantly surprised with how nicely things wrapped up.
I did think that the beginning was a bit slow (it definitely took me a few tries to get into this book) and there were some elements of the plot that were jumped into too quickly, but overall, I thought Tom Ryan's approach to a thriller was excellent. Again, the beginning took some time to get into, but after pushing passed that, I read the last 60% of the book in one sitting. Would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in YA thriller/mystery, especially one with LGBTQ representation!