The Whispers

The only reason I bought this book was that I quite liked Audrain's first novel, "The Push", which was interestingly written. "The Whispers" was just an awful, dreary read. I pushed through it because I was hoping for the story to get better, but my hope was disappointed. It's about the intertwined lives of a couple of mostly hideous people in an affluent (white) neighborhood in Toronto. Everthing's nice on the outside, but the core is rotten. After a while, the story gets so tedious and disgusting that I wonder whether Audrain just wrote this voyeuristic garbage for the money. It's worse than tabloid press. The book is full of explicit sexual content and obscenities, and not only that. There are extended scenes detailing miscarriages, which could trigger women who have repeatedly miscarried. I wish Audrain had come up with real criticism of our western capitalist patriarchy, but she didn't. Definitely not a recommendation.