The Sound by Sarah Alderson
Genre: Mystery, Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 310
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

I am so glad I picked this book up, because I’d heard absolutely nothing about it and just happened to spot it in the library. However, it’s also the kind of book that my conscience said ‘you shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as you are.’ I had some definite problems, but this book had everything, which almost made up for them.

Ren is an English girl who dreams of becoming a music journalist, she decides to take a summer out to nanny for a family in Nantucket, where she falls into a group of a preppy teenagers that warn her against Jesse Miller. So what does she do? She ignores them. I liked Ren as a character by the end of the novel, because she stuck up for her true friends and was ready to fight for justice, but she also lacked some common sense. As for her relationship with Jesse, it was very reminiscent of a Becca Fitzpatrick novel – actually extremely similar to the relationship in Black Ice. If you like Fitzpatrick’s writing, or the novels by Katy McGarry (very similar to Pushing The Limits as well!) I would definitely recommend The Sound!

If you’ve read my reviews on the books mentioned you will know that I really didn’t like Black Ice, and essentially The Sound is Black Ice, but it’s so much more engaging! The murder mystery and the truth about Jesse’s past isn’t really revealed until the last portion of the novel, and I was completely blown away by how thrilling the tense scenes were. The slow build up to the mystery really helped to make this book much more enjoyable. In the beginning I forgot that there was even supposed to be a murder mystery, I wouldn’t have known at all from the first 200 pages if I hadn’t read the blurb, but it was so well laid out that I didn’t see any of the plot twists coming.

As much as enjoyed the majority of this novel, I still had some issues. Here’s a list!

Problem Number 1: Girl on girl hate. Why? The word ‘slut’ and ‘skank’ appears every other page. It might be used jovially at times, but derogatory terms should not be used in jest, in any situation. As we all know, “If you call each other sluts and whores, it makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.’ There was also a lot of insensitive comments on body types and whether or not those girls deserved their relationships. No, no, don’t like that either. I probably would’ve increased the star rating had this not been completely distracting to the storyline.

Problem Number 2: The book justifies its ‘girl falls for ‘bad boy” plot line with other bad ‘girl falls for ‘bad boy” books. Twilight is referenced a bunch of times, and the characters are self-aware of their ridiculousness so justify their actions with something along the lines of ‘well, at least this isn’t Twilight.‘

Problem Number 3: Lack of common sense. There are literal murderers on an island who seem to only be targeting foreign nannies and Ren does’t immediately book the first flight back to England. What?

Problem Number 4: Kissing. All of the ‘preppy boys’ would kiss Ren on the cheek, and although it does foreshadow the reveal later on, it seemed so silly at the time. Almost every time Jeremy saw her he’d go straight for a kiss on the cheek. When you don’t know someone you don’t just kiss them on the second chance encounter, surely?

In conclusion, although I’m only giving The Sound three stars it’s also made it to my favourites shelf. It was fun and lighthearted whilst also being incredibly serious and tense. I’d recommend it to anyone who is willing to look over the problems list – but still acknowledge that there are obvious faults – and just wants to read something where they can get totally carried away with the story.