Review: Whisper Network by Chandler Baker

Whisper Network by Chandler Baker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is marketed as a thriller but it kind of fails in that regard.  While there is an investigation it lacks the suspense aspect I want from a thriller.  It is much more procedural than thriller, and deals with the bigger issue of misogyny and male chauvanism in the workplace, sexual harrassment, and inequity when it comes to men and women doing the same job.  I think this book would have been more powerful had the murder investigation been left out.  It didn't really add much to the storyline, and it really wasn't "thrilling".  When it came to the reveal you it was no big surprise who-dun-it.  It was one of two people, and frankly the reveal was lacking any sort of excitement.

This is actually a subject I'm very passionate about.  Like many women in a male dominated career field I've experienced harassment first hand.  I think the author did a good job addressing the issues that many women face in their day to day lives and careers.  Often women don't speak up when they are being harassed or assaulted out of embarrassment and fear.  I think she captured that accurately.  Unfortunately despite her capturing all of the issues, I didn't like any of the characters in this.  All of the main characters seemed pretentious and whiney, despite the fact that they had valid claims of sexual harrasment or assualt against their boss.  In a story like this you want to cheer for the women who are finally standing up for themselves and speaking out.  While I'm happy they took action, I did not enjoy them.

I also felt the narraction of the book was a bit lacking.  The audio narrator did try to give each of the characters a different voice, but I had a hard time distinguishing the characters.  That is something I look for in an audiobook when there are alot of characters, and they all sounded too similar for my liking.  That paired with this not really being a thriller and having unlikable characters, this book was a miss for me.  I really expected to enjoy this book because it covers such an important and personal topic.  Unfortunately, this just didn't work for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me copy of the audiobook.  All opinions are my own.

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