This was quite an emotional, roller-coaster read. By turns quite dark and disturbing, yet at others light and very funny, it weaves and winds its way through the mystery of Lana's disappearance, being part crime/mystery, part family drama, part mental health.
I found Jen difficult, as a lead character, lurching from identifying with her to being both horrified and sympathetic over her situation. Lana I felt liked much more, and Meg even more than that.

The style is interesting, with longer pieces mixed together with shorter snapshots, comments, conversations and life moments. I liked it, and it made the family feel very familiar, as if we had insight into their lives. They all feel like very real characters. The discussions & descriptions around mental health were very well done.

The only part I was a little unsure about was when it seems that Lana & Hugh are discussing Jen in private, suspicious of her behaviour, monitoring her laptop usage etc. That is never explained, and was a hanging thread that I'm still wondering about! But the resolution to the book worked well for me, and wasn't something I'd expected.

Overall, this is a very good story. I also really enjoyed Elizabeth is Missing, so I'm glad it's been followed up by another great book.

I loved the author’s previous book and I was thrilled to receive a copy of this from Netgalley. But I’m afraid this turned out to be a dull read, continuing out of duty rather than a desire to know the end of the story. The language and descriptions are deftly executed and had the plot been better this would be a 4 or 5 star book. But a lack of plot and strength of characterisation left me unmoved.

When I read Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey I was impressed by the way she dealt with some of the more sensitive aspects of living with dementia. Whistle in The Dark deals with some equally sensitive issues and does so equally well.

Whistle in The Dark is not what it may seem on first inspection, it is less about the days Lana was missing and more about the complex relationship between a mother and her daughter.

Fifteen-year-old Lana was on an artist's retreat with her mother when she went missing. Four days later she turns up soaking wet and with a variety of injuries. She claims not to remember where she has been but is she telling the truth?

The family return home to London thinking the ordeal is over but Jen is increasingly concerned by her daughters altered behaviour and her reluctance to sleep without the lights on. What happened during the four days she was missing?

One of the things I liked best about Whistle in The Dark is its portrayal of mental health in young adults and the effect depression can have on an individual and on their family. During the course of the book, it becomes clear that Lana has suffered with depression in the past and that this has led to her cutting herself and to a suicide attempt.

This explanation of Lana’s past goes someway to explaining Jen’s increasingly obsessive behaviour throughout the novel. Obviously, any parent would be concerned at her daughter being missing four days and returning with a fear of the dark and enclosed spaces and a reluctance to talk. Particularly when this same daughter has already been a cause for concern because of her previous mental health.

Having said this, Jen was incredibly frustrating as a character and there were many times I wished I could shout at her to back off and stop being so overbearing.

Meg, Lana’s elder sister, was my favourite character in Whistle in the Dark because offers the reader a more balanced view on the situation. She highlights Jen’s somewhat neurotic behaviour, but she also highlights Lana’s potentially manipulative behaviour as well.

‘We were talking about Lana, ‘Meg said, ‘about the way she affects your mood, the way she has you tiptoeing around her, the way she uses you as a walking frame.”

Lana and Jen obviously had a strained relationship prior to her disappearance for four days and this tension is added to when Jen starts spying on her and stalking her social media accounts in order to discover any information she could about the missing days.

‘What are you thinking about me?’

‘I’m not thinking,’ Jen said. ‘Or at least, I’m trying my best not to think.’

‘Good, because everything you think is wrong.’

That could be the tagline for their relationship Jen thought.

Emma Healey builds a sense of suspense throughout the novel by not immediately revealing what happened during those missing days. I enjoyed the different theories she revealed during the course of the novel and also the way not knowing effects the family.

Whistle in the Dark was thoroughly enjoyable.

I was sent an uncorrected proof of Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey to read and review by NetGalley.
Beautifully written – nothing less than you would expect from the author of Elizabeth is Missing! As with her previous novel Emma Healey has tackled serious issues sympathetically with both insight and wit. The author is incredibly adept at tapping into her characters emotions, really bringing them to life. She also has the gift of making the situations she writes about very believable, with ordinary everyday life becoming extraordinary. I love the way she can allow her characters to descend into a kind of madness that is relatable in the real world.
I do not want to go into the premise of the story, I just urge you to read and enjoy!

It may be unfair to compare Whistle in the Dark to Elizabeth is Missing, but I felt it just missed some of the warmth of Emma's debut. Having said this, I very much enjoyed reading Whistle in the Dark - it's a nuanced, sometimes hard-to-read observation of a family in turmoil. The family dynamics between Jen and Lana is where the book really shines, and although the plot is slow, there was enough to keep me interested right until the final page.

Very disappointed with the book.I kept reading to see if ending was good but at the 93% stage of my read I felt absolutely shattered with the continuous repeats of the storyline. Decided to abandon the read as I was no longer interested with the ending.I also found some parts of the story difficult to understand as it flows from one character from past to present within paragraphs.I was unsure if it was meant to be a thriller and a supernatural fiction!

This is not a bad book, but it was a bit difficult to follow, mostly because of lots and I feel it should have been a lot shorter. The characters seem forced and by the end, I couldn't say I cared about what happened to them too much. 

The story is not so much about Lana, the missing teenager, but about Jen, her hapless mother, who tries in vain to reconnect with her daughter. The feeling I got was that this reconnection was mission impossible, not because of the incident that led to Lana's disappearance, but because the connection wasn't there in the first place.

Lana is a teenager who struggles with depression and wants to kill herself. She mentions this to her mother in the most peculiar moments, casually, as she was talking about what takeaway to get for dinner. Jen is obviously worried and does her best to get to the bottom of the problem, but fails because she is too normal a woman to deal with this sort of mental health issue. Healey did a good job of describing the mother-daughter dynamics but somehow failed to make me care about either of them.

The flatness of the story is what ruins what it could have been a great rendition of being a mother of a troubled teenager / the daughter of a run-of-the-mill mother. As someone who was raised in a family where no one besides them suffered from depression in their life and knows first-hand how it feels like to be brushed off as "difficult," I figured Lana would be developed into a more complex character. That didn't happen, and by the middle of the book, I got bored with all the angst that seemed somehow forced.

I received this book on pre-release proof from Netgalley. It appealed to be due to the content, having read the 'blurb' and having a teenager myself I felt an affinity with the story. I felt an empathy for Jen and can't imagine what would be going through my mind if my child went missing for 4 days. However, that's where the empathy ended for me - I found Lana annoying and attention-seeking. I felt that Jen could have been made a stronger character and that Lana's dad was portrayed in a very stereo-typical 'laid back dad' kind of way - insisting that Lana would eventually get over whatever was troubling her. The premise of the story was great but it didn't quite carry through for me.

This was by no means a happy book. It was dark and depressing, and at times, hard to get through. Laura was a believable character, which made her characterisation all the more difficult to read, especially since I found her mother to be rather too dismissive at times. Emma Healey seems to have a flair for writing about mental health. She does a fantastic job, but unfortunately, the topic she chose for Whistle in the Dark made it difficult to really engage with the characters. Whether that be because we don't understand what they're going through, or we do, and it's difficult to see it put to the page like that, it's a book that I feel will be quite divisive. It was well written, and definitely one I'll be recommending, even if I can't say that I 100% enjoyed it.

This isn't a bad book at all I'm afraid it just didn't suit me. I really disliked Jen as the main character which made it almost possible for me to enjoy the story. Perhaps I'm not "literary" enough, perhaps that's the point? I'm not sure.

Following on from “Elizabeth is missing” Emma Healey has written an extremely readable story depicting a believable version of family life, following a traumatic incident. Teenage Lana goes missing for four days. When she turns up safe and well everyone wants to know what happened, but she’s not telling. The story continues from the perspective of Lana’s mother Jen. As she tries to find out what really happened, we go with her on her journey seeing into the fragile relationship between anxious mother and troubled teenage daughter. Some elements were so true to life that I laughed out loud and read them to my own (now grown-up) daughter. I found this a thoroughly readable and enjoyable book and highly recommend it - especially to mothers of teenage girls!

I enjoyes this book but thought it was a bit drawn out. The characters are not particularly likeable but I did want to know what the ending brought.

By the author of Elizabeth is Missing, this is another beautifully written book. In Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey depicted dementia extremely well, and Whistle in the Dark portrays mental illness, in particular depression, superbly in a similar vein.
After 15 year old Lana went missing for 4 days, her anxiety-ridden mother Jen tries desperately to uncover what happened to her. She continually asks her questions, refuses to believe her answers, and stalks her online hunting for clues to the lost days. Emma Healey does a great job of making you sympathise with both mother and daughter, even as both act pretty horrendously to each other.
The denouement where Jen finally discovers where Lana went and what happened to her was touching, terrifying and heart-rending all at once. This book deals with mother-daughter relationships really well, and makes you think about boundaries, privacy and secrets. I enjoyed the book immensely and will be eagerly awaiting the next book by this author.
I received a free e-ARC of this book via Netgalley but all opinions are my own.

Lana is missing for four days before being found. She won't say where she has been or what has happened but it has changed her.
Jen, her mother, feels that Lana is slipping away from her and the family and wants to find out what actually happened to her daughter. However, she is unprepared for what she finds.

I absolutely loved the first novel by this author, but I'm really not sure what I thought of this book so I am sitting firmly on the fence. It does tackle some tough subjects such as depression and the fur lined ruts we all fall into within relationships which may have made the storyline trickier to write.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. This is a story about a mother and daughters relationship and the ups and downs that this brings,. I would recommend this book to other readers

This was a very good book but it is dark and rather depressing so you need to be in a good frame of mind to read it. If you aren't ready for a story like that you can struggle to enjoy it no matter how good the story or interesting the characters are. It portrays a very realistic view of teenagers and mental health.

I quite liked her first book so was looking forward to this but was sorely disappointed. It was fairly boring for the most part.

I found this book quite hard-going, unlike Elizabeth is Missing. I didn't really engage with the characters, nor did I care what happened to them. I think this was in part to do with the extremely short 'chapters', if you can call them chapters. I did find the ending satisfactory but felt the whole thing was too stretched out. A pity!

* disclaimer i received a free copy of this novel through netgalley in response for an honest review*
initially, i excited to read this after loving Emma Healey's debut novel "Elizabeth is missing" and it did not disappoint!
it follows Lana and Jens relationship after 15 year old Lana has been found days after going missing, unable to explain what has happened to her. The relationship between mother and daughter is explored in this book, with a teenage daughter that is unable to express her feelings, and goes between outright contempt for her mother and affection that she struggles to communicate. It felt real to me, that was a major advantage to the book, the characters seemed so real.
this book was a great book a family that utterly drew me in.
I give this book 4/5 stars and would recommend it!