The Girl Who Heard Demons
Janette Rallison
The demons came again during the night. I was sleeping alone in my aunt's house, and their swishing whispers woke me.
I turned off my Kindle and vowed I would try again when it was light outside. There was no way I was going to read a scary, creepy book right before trying to go to sleep. On a school night. In a dark room. Alone.
I did look at the back liner again though, just to make sure:
Shy Adelle Hansen hears demons, but she’s determined to make friends at her new high school by keeping her ability secret.
When
she overhears supernatural voices celebrating the impending death of
the school quarterback, Levi Anderson, she knows she has to do something
to prevent it. However, the demons aren’t the ones plotting; they’re
just celebrating the chaos, and Adelle must contend with earthly forces
as well if she wants to preserve Levi’s life.
Handsome,
popular Levi doesn't appreciate Adelle’s self-appointed role of
guardian angel. As Adelle battles to keep him safe, she’ll have to
protect her heart, too. Can she do both?
A couple of days later I tried again. And was so very happy I did. Janette does not disappoint and she definitely delivers an A+ story. Her demons are just scary enough to be creepy and scary, but not so ever present as to be overwhelming. And I could have continued reading that first night. Her bad guys are really bad news and the hero should be awarded a white horse because he truly is valiant even if he doesn't know it yet.
Adelle just wants to be normal, liked, accepted and not judged but that is really hard when people can't understand why you want to help them. But she turns out to be a pretty good person anyway. And Levi needs help, even if his friends are jerks, maybe especially since his friends are jerks. But they are teenagers, so maybe they aren't jerks but just unguided teenagers.
I work in a high school and the dialogue, the setting, the cliques all rang true. I often read YA lit and am turned off by how grown up, mature and reasonable the teens sound in their conversation. The students outside or inside my office never sound like that. Janette channeled the conversations, thought process, angst, everything perfectly.
When I started reading I couldn't put it down. In fact, I had to rush around to finish getting ready for work and Brandi even finished getting ready before me because I kept reading "just one more page". And then the night I finished it Brandi had on a series we had been watching, a cooking show, and I didn't even watch because I just HAD to finish.
Character development gets an A as well. Levi grew the most in the story and it was fun to watch him grow and go through the doubts and acceptance and disbelief and the pain of growing into the person he is at the end of the book. A much better version of himself.
Adelle did her own growing and learning and accepting. Janette has an amazing ability to let her characters grow at a natural pace and she doesn't force anything, she is ok with her characters being imperfect versions of people and then learning how to be a better, imperfect version. There is no forced learning or going from being imperfect to perfect in 3 pages. Nope, her characters grow, and learn and have growing pains and I love it.
Oh, and did I mention the laughing out loud? I did a lot of that. Because Janette has a way of twisting words to find the humor in almost every situation. I don't want to ruin it for you because it is such a laugh out loud moment, and it has to do with beached whales and I am still chuckling over it weeks later. I think that was my favorite moment of the entire book. My favorite among favorites.
The Girl Who Heard Demons by Janette Rallison was an Amazon Kindle Scout winner. Get it. Read it Love it.
Get it here: Amazon
A bit about Janette:
Janette Rallison/CJ Hill writes books because writing is much more fun than cleaning bathrooms.
Her
avoidance of housework has led her to writing 24 novels that have sold
over 1,000,000 print copies and have been on many reading and state
lists.
Her
books are fantasy, sci-fi, and romantic comedy because hey, there is
enough angst in real life, but there’s a drastic shortage of humor,
romance and hot guys who fight dragons.
She lives in Arizona with her husband, kids, and enough cats to classify her as eccentric.
Indeed
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