Review: Hushed

Hushed by Joanne Macgregor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hushed is a truly beautiful read, a book I fell in love with almost instantly. From the beginning until the end I was pulled in, curious as to how things would play out, hoping for the best, experiencing a wide range of emotions. In other words, it is well worth the read.

Advertised as a modern romance inspired by The Little Mermaid, I knew I needed to read this one. The Little Mermaid is one of my favourite Disney movies (second only to Mulan) and a good retelling has been a long time coming. As this is contemporary fiction, I knew this wasn’t going to be a tale of fins and bubbly things. Nevertheless, I was hopeful. Contemporary or fantasy, I’m always going to give something with a Little Mermaid reference a read.

In all honesty, though, this book would have worked perfectly without The Little Mermaid reference in the synopsis. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find parallels rather than simply enjoying the beauty of this story. Honestly, I think such a thing distracted me a little bit at the start of the book. My mind kept whispering ‘The Little Mermaid’ and I overlooked the other fantastic things in front of me. You see, this book deals with so many deep issues – and it really deserves a lot of love for that aspect alone. The story deals with environmental issues in a meaningful way (I find often this can be ignored in stories or it can feel like an author is trying to force their views upon you, but such is not the case here); the story deals with finding yourself (in relation to family expectations and taking risky choices); the story deals with the issues of fame (a lot of story are using the movie industry as a backdrop and I’m really enjoying this trend, yet I found this one to send a deeper message than some others out there). I could keep listing things this book deals with, but I won’t. Just know there is a lot more to this story that a girl finding her feet.

It’s not just that, as this story is more than just deep meanings. It does not feel like a chore, it does not feel as though you’re being forced to experience a lot of things at once. Filled with all kinds of emotions, at the heart of the story is a wonderful romance read. We have two amazing characters, characters I grew to love more and more as the story progressed. I wasn’t sure about them at first, but they developed so much throughout the story. I became so immersed in their lives, and I had no wish for the tale to end. There are moments that will leave you laughing out loud (I woke my sibling with my four in the morning giggling, and was made to explain what I found so entertaining), there are moments that will leave you heart broken, and every emotion in-between pops in to say hello. I spent the entire story hoping for that happily ever after, whilst fearful of my heart being ripped in two. How it ends, though, I refuse to say. I have no wish to be the person who gives spoilers – just know you’ll want to hold out until the end, because it is amazing.

The only problem I had with the ending was that I wanted more. I do not mean this in the simple way of ‘I was so in their world that I had no wish to return to reality’. As true as that may be, I also mean it in terms of an epilogue. I wanted one more chapter, something more, to let me know how events played out in the future. So much happened during the last twenty percent of the story, that I wanted one more final – preferably calmer – scene that let me see the future. As nice as it is to leave things to the imagination, I just wanted a tiny bit more so that I could imagine just how the lives of the characters started to play out beyond this story.

Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It was positively addictive, a story I was unwilling to put down. A very strong four star read, one that came close to being a five star.

Note, I read a complimentary copy of the book supplied by the author via Siobhan Davis's Street Team. I have voluntarily reviewed same.

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