i hope you’re listening – tom ryan | ARC review + blog tour + giveaway (US only)

I Hope You’re Listening by Tom Ryan
Standalone
Expected publication: October 6th 2020 by Aw Teen
Age Range: Young Adult
Genre: mystery, contemporary, lgbt

Rating:

Synopsis:

EVERY MISSING PERSON HAS A STORY.

In her small town, seventeen-year-old Delia “Dee” Skinner is known as the girl who wasn’t taken. Ten years ago she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, Sibby. And though she told the police everything she remembered, it wasn’t enough. Sibby was never seen again.

At night, Dee deals with her guilt by becoming someone else: the Seeker, the voice behind the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent, which features missing persons cases and works with online sleuths to solve them. Nobody knows Dee’s the Seeker, and she plans to keep it that way.

When another little girl in town goes missing, and the case is linked to Sibby’s disappearance, Dee has a chance to get answers with the help of her virtual detectives and the intriguing new girl at school. But how much of her own story is she willing to reveal in order to uncover the truth?

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☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾

Thank you TBR and Beyond Tour for selecting me to be a part of this blog tour! To find out who’s involved in this tour, check out the schedule.

☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾

I Hope You’re Listening has some of my favorite things––true crime, podcast, online sleuths, and mysteries. As a listener of true crime podcasts, this synopsis captured my attention immediately. Add in a new missing person case, a pesky reporter, and a cute love interest, you have I Hope You’re Listening. Tom Ryan’s writing is simplistic and easy to read. There is more than meets the eye.

Wanting to stay as the anonymous podcaster, the Seeker, on her own podcast called Radio Silent, Dee’s hesitant in exposing her identity when another young girl went missing in her town. Not when it’s dredging up old memories and emotions that she had been trying to bury all these years.

‘Is there something you can do to help?
Listen up.
Let’s try.’

Dee went through a whole journey trying to find out the truth about Sibby’s disappearance. She has no idea what kind of danger she was throwing herself into. I did like the progression of the story, and where it was led up to. However, I think the pacing could feel a little smoother because things sped up really quickly nearer to the end.

As for the romance, I liked Dee and Sarah. Their initial progress was paced nicely and timed properly. However, their future development was a little too quick considering that they just started to know each other for the attraction to turn into something more. Might just be me since I do love a good slow burn romance. It doesn’t bother me much since the romance took a backseat of all the mystery and sleuthing going on.

Overall, the mysteries were concluded nicely. All questions were answered. As someone who likes to be a detective while reading mystery books, I didn’t really find the urge to do that in this book. However, I Hope You’re Listening still had the thrill and had enraptured me to find out what was going to be happening next. Despite finding the book lacking in certain areas, I still had a great experience with Tom Ryan’s new novel.