lovecrapian horrorI'm currently reading THE WHISPERING DARK by Kelly Andrew and this book infuriates me with how good it could be but my issues with its execution, aaaaaaaa
THE WHISPERING DARK is tells the story of a deaf girl who enrolls at a magic university, basically. There are demons and walking between worlds and mediums and... I'm sure there's other stuff but the worldbuilding isn't very thorough. We don't know what she studies, I'm at 75% and I still unclear on exactly what her magical ability is. What concentrations are offered? What magic (if any) does she practice? Who knows! It's never explained.
But!!!!! The protagonist's deafness influences how she interacts with magic, and I think that's really clever. I want more of this.
The prose is great, the vibes and atmosphere are purposeful.
But then, the way some chapters are written... I feel like I'm missing pages. Important characters appear but we were never given an introduction. Chapters open with the protagonist doing something and only 3, 4 pages later do we realize there are other people in the room and she's not alone. Chapters end on cliffhangers and the following chapter skips ahead 2 days, a week.
Someone literally dies on page and the next page, the protagonist has given herself a haircut while her friends hang out in the bathtub. ??????? Did she have a reaction to the person dying? Why has a week gone by? What about the body? The killer? Why did she cut her hair????
no answer, time to put on a sparkly dress.
Characters travel to a place, but we don't get a reason why, where the place is, or what they're doing there. I'm constantly confused.
And the scenes that ARE happening are certainly important but I feel like in the editing, they cut equally important things to help us understand and know the characters.
There's a romance that's central to the story and it fumbles the only-one-bed trope. How?! Why?!?! Baffling.
Also, this is just a pet peeve of mine but I hate when books repeatedly state the protagonist's full name. Normal people don't speak that way, and the reader doesn't care about the protagonist's last name so like
how many times am I gonna have to see "Delaney Meyers-Petrov brushes her teeth. How are you today, Delaney Meyers-Petrov? I, Delaney Meyers-Petrov, am not made of glass"
like... it isn't giving what you think it's giving.
But again!!!! The plot!! This book would be killer if the author/editor hadn't knee-capped the plot every chance they had.