Review: The Murmurings by Carly Anne West

The Murmurings by Carly Anne West 
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: March 5, 2013
Book Format: Paperback
# of Pages: 370
Synopsis: Everyone thinks Sophie’s sister, Nell, went crazy. After all, she heard strange voices that drove her to commit suicide. But Sophie doesn’t believe that Nell would take her own life, and she’s convinced that Nell’s doctor knows more than he’s letting on.

As Sophie starts to piece together Nell’s last days, every lead ends in a web of lies. And the deeper Sophie digs, the more danger she’s in—because now she’s hearing the same haunting whispers. Sophie’s starting to think she’s going crazy too. Or worse, that maybe she’s not…



Review: 

I bought this book with my own money and this is my honest review.

The Murmurings by Carly Anne West follows Sophie, a teenage girl looking for answers regarding her sisters odd life and untimely death. Her mother is dealing with her loss by drinking her life away and her father was never really in the picture. Sophie is on her own trying to figure out what it was her sister was hearing before she was committed to the nuthouse for some closure and because she thinks she may be hearing things too. Along the way Sophie meets a boy who may have just the knowledge she needs to figure this thing out.

Sophie was an interesting character. I really felt like I was a fly on the wall in her life. I knew her thoughts about Evan, her sister and even her mother. I felt her fear each time the murmurs started and she felt she was in danger. All the characters in this book were realistic but I wouldn’t have minded a little more insight into Sophie's mom. I knew a lot about Sophie and a lot about Evan but other than her being an alcoholic and it partially being because of the death of her daughter we don’t really get much intell into her life.

The problem I did have was more with the writing than the characters. The book describes itself as chilling and me being a horror freak, I was expecting more from this. I do understand that this is classified as a teen book but I have read teen books that were much scarier than this one. Also, if a book is going to have a freaky premise and a chilling cover it needs to be scary. Don’t get me wrong the few scenes in the book that were supposed to be scary gave me the chills but I wanted more than what was given. There were only three or four really chilling moments within an almost 400 page book which dropped the rating a star for me.