The Sound
US and UK covers
The Sound by Sarah Alderson
ISBN-10: 1442499338
ISBN-13: 978-1442499331
Publication date: 1 August 2014 by Simon Pulse
Category: Young Adult Contemporary Thriller
Keywords: Summer vacation, Realistic Fiction, Murder
Format: Hardcover, ebook
Source: Review copy provided by Author
17-year-old Londoner Ren Kingston flees a bad breakup for the summer by taking a job as a nanny for a young family vacationing on Nantucket Sound. At first, it seems like paradise: easy work, beautiful scenery, and unsupervised teenage parties. She even manages to attract the attention of handsome, wealthy Jeremy Thorne, which helps to soften the pain of her recent heartbreak. Affairs start to get complicated when she also starts befriending (and maybe falling for) local bad-boy Jesse Miller, but it's no big deal--she gets to go home at the end of the summer.
When bodies (of attractive young foreign au pairs) start turning up in the Sound (just like the summer before), Ren's mom threatens to pull the plug on her plans. Animosity flares up between Jeremy and Jesse--and Ren suspects it has nothing to do with her, and has rather more to do with the fact that Jesse nearly killed one of Jeremy's preppy buddies the previous year.
I really enjoyed this whodunit, though mostly because I found a lot to relate to among the characters. Ren and I have something in common--she's a blogger, though for music rather than books--which made me like her even more. She's funny and easy to care for, even if she seems to get dropped into too-good-to-be-true circumstances. I also really enjoyed the music she listens to (c'mon, Dry the River? I wanted to high-five my Kindle). That, and she gets a crush on a boy named Jesse Miller who just happens to play guitar in a band--dude, that was totally me when I was her age!
I'd really love to see Olivia Cooke play Ren in a film- or tv-movie-version, though I'm not sure who'd make a good Jeremy (and his twin brother, though i swear that doesn't play into the mystery portion of the story) or Jesse for that matter. I confess, in my mind Jesse was a slightly more serious Jake Wyler (as played by Chris Evans 13 years ago in Not Another Teen Movie), but maybe Sam Clafin (who starred with Cooke in The Quiet Ones) would work.
Ahem. Back to the topic at hand.
While I don't expect all other readers in the world to like Ren for those same reasons (I mean, what are the chances you are a funny blogger with a huge crush on Jesse Miller who plays guitar?) I think many readers will enjoy the summer romance, haves-versus-have-nots, slightly-predictable-but-creepy-nonetheless mystery. I thought that despite the Gossip-Girl-iness of it all (something the main character occasionally points out, so meta is she), the relationships felt believable, and Ren finds as many friends as she does foes. My only peeve: why did the US not get the cool UK cover art?
All in all, The Sound is a great summer read for when it's just too bloody hot to think (so basically all of Los Angeles needs to read this book right now).
I received this book for free from Sarah Alderson for review purposes.
