WE HEAR VOICES by Evie Green – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

We Hear Voices by Evie Green
Published by Berkley on December 1 2020
Genres: Adult, Science fiction, Horror
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: An ambitious genre mash-up that tackles such diverse topics as poverty, imaginary friends, space exploration and family bonds.

We Hear Voices caught me off guard, but in a good way. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t realize this was science fiction/dystopian when I started reading it. It looks like horror, right? There are horrific elements for sure, but I was surprised by all the SF tropes as well. 

The story takes place in a future London in the middle of a deadly pandemic and revolves around several connected families. Rachel is divorced with two children, sixteen year old Nina and six year old Billy, and she currently lives with her boyfriend Al. She and Al have recently had a baby girl together named Beth, so their small, dingy apartment is feeling cramped at the moment. The family is in dire straits since Rachel has been on maternity leave for eight months with no income. In addition to that, she had to leave her job at a law firm due to anxiety, and now she’s not sure how she will be able to work again.

Even worse, Billy has caught the J5X virus and is dying when the story opens. The family has gathered to say their goodbyes, but the next day, Billy appears to be better and quickly recovers. Rachel is elated, until Billy starts talking about his new imaginary friend, a girl named Delfy. At first, Delfy seems to be a coping mechanism for Billy’s recovery, but soon disturbing things start to happen and Billy insists that Delfy made him do them. After a terrible tragedy occurs, Rachel knows she can no longer handle Billy on her own, and so she turns to Dr. Graham Watson for help.

Graham runs a secret underground facility where he’s gathered a handful of children who, like Billy, have recovered from the virus and claim they have imaginary friends “living in their heads.” All of the children have committed heinous crimes, and Graham’s facility is the only place to keep them safely out of society.

Meanwhile, Nina is convinced that something or someone is controlling Billy and that it might be connected to a mysterious plane crash that happened in London a year ago. With the help of a couple of friends, she starts a blog called We Hear Voices and asks anyone with similar experiences to contact her. Something big is going on, and Nina wants to get some answers.

As you can see from my awkward attempt to describe the plot of We Hear Voices, there are a lot of moving pieces to this story. Luckily they mostly make sense and work together, but Evie Green really has her work cut out for her. This is a tough story to classify, since it has elements of science fiction, dystopian, horror, mystery/thriller, paranormal and even contemporary family drama. I really enjoyed the mystery of the “imaginary friends,” which the author stretches out for most of the book, only revealing her hand near the end. She kept me guessing, and although I sort of figured out what was going on, Green still managed to surprise me.

Tucked in among the mystery are several competing events. First, we have the story line about the space program, where a group of gifted teens are being groomed to be the first generation on a ship that will take over a hundred years to reach a new planet. Nina and her boyfriend Louis are both in the program, and it’s Nina’s dream to help create a better life for humans by helping colonize another planet. I liked these sections because the space program is run by the conglomerate Starcom, a shady organization that is literally taking over everything. Starcom plays a big part in the reveal at the end, and they also act as one of the villains of the story.

Then you have Graham’s story, which revolves around the disturbed children in his care. Graham’s dead wife Imogen appears to him in ghostly form, popping up just when he needs her. Imogen is another mystery in this story. Is she really a ghost? Or is Graham just imagining her? And what is her connection with some of the other characters in the story? Imogen’s resolution was one that I wasn’t completely satisfied with, although I was surprised by those connections I mentioned. Is it bad to admit I would have loved a story just about Graham and Imogen?

But the most heartbreaking part of the story was the depiction of Rachel’s family and their desperate attempts to claw their way out of poverty. These are good, hard working people who obviously deserve more, but the terrible divide between classes has ensured that they live in a hovel of an apartment and barely have enough to eat. Rachel’s ex husband Henry refuses to help her, although he’s very kind to Nina and Billy. Rachel is also dealing with her conflicting thoughts about Billy. She loves him beyond reason, but he has also shattered her heart in a way that can never be repaired. Rachel suffers blow after blow in this story, and it was almost painful to read her chapters.

As far as the horrific elements go, you have the pandemic, which everyone reading this review will be able to relate to. I read somewhere that Evie Green wrote We Hear Voices way before 2020, but it’s eerie how close to reality her vision of a pandemic turned out to be. The creepy imaginary friends were also pretty frightening at times, although because there are so many different things going on in this story, the impact is almost buried under everything else. There’s also a weird side story dealing with spiders, of all things, which I couldn’t figure out for the longest time. We finally learn more about the spiders at the end, but for me, the reveal was too little too late, and I almost would have preferred the story without them.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the human connections and emotional moments the most, since I was caught up in Rachel’s struggles with Billy, Nina’s dilemma about the space program, and Graham’s interactions with Imogen. I haven’t even mentioned half the characters in this story, but Rachel’s boyfriend Al was one of my favorites. It turns out there are so many unexpected connections among all the characters, and it was fun connecting the dots and figuring out how each one fit into the overall story. There were some negatives for me, however. Not everything is explained, particularly when it came to the imaginary friends, and certain elements just didn’t make sense to me. I suspect this might be because the story really is a bit overcrowded with so many characters and separate story lines. I also didn’t like the surprise ending—and by ending I mean the very last sentence. It felt more like a cheap way to end a horror novel and I don’t think it was necessary.

But overall, I really did enjoy this, hence my four star rating. I loved Evie Green’s writing style, and I will definitely be reading more of her work.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.