Hello hello, and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today is my stop on the Kaleidoscopic blog tour for The Last Thing You’ll Hear, a YA thriller released this month.
Synopsis
Have you ever been so obsessed with someone that you start to lose yourself?
Wren and Lark are rivals first and sisters second, so when mysterious music producer, Adam, and his DJ prodigy, Spinner, come to their small town, the game is on to impress.
Lark is soon taken under Adam’s wing, but as she’s pulled deeper into his web, distancing herself from friends and family, Wren starts to suspect that there’s a more sinister side to Adam. And when the sisters get a chance to perform at Enrapture the most talked-about festival of the summer, suddenly there is a lot to lose…
Can Wren put her own ambitions aside to save her sisters life?
One thing’s for sure: after this summer, nothing will ever be the same again.
Review
Rating: 3 stars
The Last Thing You’ll Hear takes the beauty of music and turns it inside out, becoming something more dangerous than passionate, and more sinister than adoration.
Following clashing sisters Lark and Wren, the children of musicians and music lovers in their own right, there is tension right from the early pages. One of the things this book does really well is capture the awkwardness and desire to fit in of the teenage years. Lark seemingly has it all with good looks and natural talent, whereas somewhat more awkward Wren has a crush on a boy and just wants her exams to go well. They are very different people, and while they clearly love each other, their rivalry is pretty toxic.
Danny, Wren’s crush and next-door neighbour, has played guitar with her from a tiny age, but since a virus a few years ago, has become deaf. The representation itself was well done, with moments of ableism by other characters counteracted with Wren’s dedication to Danny as a friend, and also by Danny’s talk of feeling that being deaf was now part of who he is. Although I am not hard of hearing, I am visually impaired as well as being disabled, and I related a lot to some of the moments where his deafness came up. It also became a critical part of the storyline, so wasn’t representation for representation’s sake, either.
The characters of Spinner and Adam loomed large on the page, taking up space unapologetically – and not in a good way. Spinner’s nasty views on masculinity and women begin to rub off on those gripped in the haze surrounding Enrapture, and while this was important, it was pretty chilling to read. On the slip side, it seemed to be over and done with very quickly, so didn’t fully live to its potential, which is also how I found the ending; it was a tad anti-climactic, and felt rushed.
That said, this was very much an ode to obsession and finding yourself lost, only to stumble upon a guide who might not be the best for you. If you’re a music lover, a character-motivated fan, or a reader of YA thrillers, you’ll want to pick up The Last Thing You’ll Hear this summer.
Author Information
Jan Dunning’s debut Mirror Me, a YA thriller that reimagined the tale of Snow White, set in the high-fashion world was crowned winner of the Oxfordshire Children’s Book Award 2024.
A former fashion model, Jan lives in Bath with her family, and in addition to her writing and photography, works as an art teacher.
Author’s Instagram here
Author’s Twitter / X here
Thanks for stopping by for this review today, and thank you to both Kaleidoscopic Tours and Scholastic for my copy of the book. I’ll be back with plenty more bookish content next week, so please consider dropping me a follow below so you never miss another post.
And On She Reads 