First of all, I want to thank NetGalley and the publishers at Albert Whitman & Company for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. I was excited to read this Young Adult Mystery/Thriller that comes out on October 6th.

When she was 7 years old, Dee was playing in the woods with her best friend Sibby when her friend was kidnapped. In the intervening years, Dee has grown into an insomniac with more questions than answers and a thirst to help others. Her podcast Radio Silent looks to solve missing persons cases by bring armchair detectives together. What Dee didn’t expect was to get in the middle of it all.

As anyone who has followed my reading experience on Goodreads may know, Mystery/Thriller is a genre I’ve recently discovered that I don’t get on well with. Most of the time it’s always misdirected by an unreliable narrator which I cannot stand. Thankfully, this story doesn’t do that at all. It always felt like an actual mystery and not something blurred for the reader by having a character who over drinks or has a mental health disorder. It was fun trying to unravel the mysteries in this novel. (Also, have you seen that cover??)

I also really enjoyed the settings in this story. First, you have the woods where all the neighborhood kids used to play. That reminded me of the woods near my house growing up so that was fun to see. And then you have the house Dee and her family move into and her amazing bedroom. I think if they were to turn this into a movie or TV show I would absolutely lose it if they didn’t do that house justice. I think it added character to the story and made it feel more accessible as a reader.

The main complaint I’m going to have is one that I always have when reading a good book. It’s too short. There. I said it. While I’m connected to Dee as a character, everyone else, including her girlfriend, feels under developed. I think we needed more there. I know Mysteries tend to have a faster pace to the story and I still think it’s possible to do that with better developed characters. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed this one so much. This has been the most accessible Mystery/Thriller I’ve read and the one that makes the most sense to me as a reader.

Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to read I Hope You're Listening by Tom Ryan

In this edition there are a lot of typos and at Loc. 1240 there is a POV mix up. The whole memory is written in 3rd person and then in the middle of one sentence it switches to 1st person. There is also a moment where Dee introduces herself to Greta Carmichael as Delia Carmichael instead of Skinner. Loc 1698

I absolutely loved this story! I was gripped right from the start by a young woman who had a traumatic experience and decided to do something about it. Delia is clearly not over the kidnapping of her best friend Sibby but when she sets up a podcast to help locate other missing people she begins to take charge of her life. As she dives into a recent and close to home missing child case she discovers more than she anticipated, about the new case, Sibby’s case, and herself.
I also loved the portrayal of an LGBT main character but there was no “coming out” moment. It was just accepted from the beginning that she liked girls and the romance progressed just as any story that had the romance as a secondary plot line. It felt right, like there doesn’t need to be this whole exclamation about her sexuality, Delia is written the same as any heterosexual teen character would be. You don’t see explanations about their heterosexuality in books so why would it be necessary in a story about a homosexual character.

ten years after witnessing the kidnapping of her best friend, delia "dee" skinner has devoted herself to bringing missing people home, desperate to save others the way she couldn't save sibby. never mind that she was seven years old; the guilt weighs on her every day, and anonymously running her podcast, radio silent, has become a veritable obsession. when another little girl goes missing from her small town, and dee receives a tip from someone who swears they'd seen sibby alive, dee realizes that she's got to find the answers to bring them both home.

◦ i actually really liked this one! it took a couple of tries for me to get into—i wasn't totally taken by the beginning—but as the plot really began to unfold it became pretty fun, so i was pleasantly surprised by that!

◦ dee—i didn't like dee, like, as a person. she definitely grated on me. but here's the thing: she's seventeen, has been through hell, and definitely acts like it. at times she's unnecessarily abrasive, super selfish, and an awful friend. i found the decisions she made rash, but not in the sense that it felt like she was only making these decisions to justify the plot; she actually read to me as an impulsive, obsessive person. so while dee isn't a super sympathetic character by any means (i mean, aside from the obvious) she definitely holds her own.

◦ i wish we'd seen more of burke! i think there were a lot of places to really bring him to life—especially considering his circumstances—but instead it felt like he'd been relegated to a pretty flat best friend role.

◦ the romance sort of sucks. it happens really quickly, with little development. it's a super understated thread of the story, and while dee and sarah's relationship didn't detract from anything, i would hesitate to say having them together really added anything. plus sarah isn't a particularly important or whole character by herself.

◦ i'm also not sure what the intent of the main radio silent case—with vanessa and nia—was? i thought the snippets of the podcast pertaining to that pulled me out of the important bits of the story, making it feel a little disjointed.

◦ despite these things, i'd say i hope you're listening was a success for me. i wanted to find out what happened to sibby nearly as much as dee. 3 stars!

This is my first read by author Tom Ryan. I was really drawn to this story’s premise, a teen (named Delia “Dee” Skinner) who starts an anonymous podcast that helps solve true crime cases via laptop detectives. Her journey to do this started when her best friend was abducted when they were kids. Yet, she doesn’t use the podcast to try and solve that one personal case. Instead it’s like a coping mechanism to help others, until she gets tangled up in another abduction that involves people close to her.

The first third of the story may have been a tad slow for me. But it picked up steam after a few chapters when Dee peeled back the layers of the cases and herself. She really never healed from the loss of her friend. Then, I went on this a steep rollercoaster with fast-paced action, new reveals, and a very motivated main character who took risks in uncovering secrets.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story and found myself staying up late to get in another chapter to know how everything ends. I look forward to reading more from this author!

Dee Skinner witnessed the abduction of her best friend ten years ago. Today, as she still deals with the guilt of being “the girl who was not taken”, she’s the anonymous voice behind a popular true crime podcast called “Radio Silent”, and now there’s a new missing persons case seemingly connected to her best friend’s that she needs her listeners to acknowledge in hopes of solving it.

This story has a “Riverdale” feel to it that will definitely appeal to YA readers. It alternates between the present day and 10 years earlier, the time of the protag’s BFF’s abduction, and slowly progresses to the final reveal which, while not as dark as Keep This To Yourself’s, would certainly bring satisfaction to readers of this genre.

You know when a book is good, and you know you love it and think to yourself that it can't possibly get better? Then this completely out of nowhere, strange, dramatic twist happens and it got a million times better which I didn’t think was possible.

I Hope You’re Listening is a story about Dee, a girl who watched her best friend be kidnapped when they were only 7 years old. Dee was left behind and since then she’s felt guilty over. Guilty about not being taken, guilty about not being able to stop it, and guilty about not remembering more. Dee finds a way to give back and help herself as well as others, by creating a podcast to tell the stories of missing people.

I finished this book in less than 48 hours. I couldn’t put it down and it was such a great read. The writing was nice and just flowed so well. I didn’t know where any of this was going to lead and that another reason why I couldn’t put it down. I had theories and every single one of them were wrong and it was fantastic.

This is a wonderful complex mystery with a fantastic main character you cannot help rooting for.

Dee cannot forget what happened ten years ago when her best friend was kidnapped. Dee also cannot remember enough about what happened to help catch whoever snatched Sibby during a game of hide and seek. Dee can start a wildly successful podcast where she, disguised as the Seeker, helps shine light on unsolved missing person cases all over the country. But when another little girl goes missing, Dee doesn't want to get involved. It's too painful.

I loved this book. It's smart and twisty and complex with a cast of characters to love. I cannot recommend this more highly.

2.5 stars in actuality, probably. It just didn't do it for me. There wasn't enough focus on the podcast and the actual mysteries both had completely outlandish endings.

One thing that really annoyed me is that someone finds out that Dee is the creator of the podcast, but she literally NEVER even bothers to ask them how they found out, and the person never gives up that information. This comes after her best friend repeatedly tells her in detail how secure her identity is and how there's nothing linking her to the podcast.

Also there is a weird case of instalove here. Instalove doesn't actually bother me in a lot of YA, just because I know as a teen I thought I loved people that I didn't even talk to!! But after kissing once, Dee calls her her girlfriend, and after us seeing them interact maybe 3 times Dee tells her she loves her. There just wasn't enough on-page bonding to make even justified instalove seem believable.

I did like how Dee liked girls and she never had a coming out moment or even explicitly told the reader. She just talked about it like it was completely normal which I can always appreciate. Straight characters never have to come out and make the announcement that they're straight.

I was just really left feeling like "well.... that solves the mystery, huh...." during the big reveals. They were really clunky and had to be fully explained, and I feel like good mysteries at least leave hints throughout. I like to at least have the option to figure out the ending ahead of time, not have it completely blindside me.

As I usually say with YA mysteries that I'm personally unimpressed with, I do think that teens just making their way into the mystery genre would like this. The queer representation is enough of a merit to include it with other beginner mysteries.

To me, this book represents what a young adult mystery should be. The characters are well drawn and developed, and representative of teenagers today. Dee and Burke in particular stood out to me as very true to YA form. Added to this is the ability for any teen or person In general to feel so present in the story that they could be involved in the events themselves... what an accomplishment. The premise is something I haven’t read before as well - I found Radio Silent to be an intriguing concept, and think the whole plot was simply very well done. The mystery wasn’t in the thriller category, but more of a small rollercoaster that was well paced throughout the book. I wasn’t able to figure out the endings of all of the various disappearances on my own, but this wasn’t frustrating as some books can be. I simply felt like I was along for the ride during this one.

I know this is an advanced copy, and I want to note that there are some major formatting issues that need to be addressed, especially between chapters and in the segments of Dee’s Radio Silent excerpts. This is one of the only issues I had with this book.

I highly recommend this read.

Actually 3.5/5*

At seven years old Delia “Dee” Skinner watched her best friend get kidnapped and now, ten years later, Dee is the host and creator of the podcast, Radio Silent. She uses it as a means to gather and share information about missing people, but she keeps herself anonymous, not wanting anyone to connect her with what happened to her best friend all those years ago. Dee has tried to put the past behind her but when another child goes missing near the spot that Dee’s best friend went missing, the past is drudged back up, forcing Dee right back into it.

There are a lot of things I like about this book, and it took me awhile to decide how exactly to rate it because there are also a few things I didn’t like about it. The story caught my attention within the first few pages as it opens with an excerpt from one of Dee’s podcasts, and from there I found myself glued to the pages. Tom Ryan has an intriguing writing style, with detailed descriptions and the ability to suck a person right in for the entirety of a novel. I flew through the book within two days, which hasn’t happened to me for quite some time, but despite this “must need to know what’s happening” interest, I actually found the ending quite unsatisfying. I won’t say why, due to spoilers, but I felt as though the build up was strong, with enough clues interspersed, and yet it fell flat by the end, the solutions feeling disjointed from everything else. It felt rushed compared to the rest of the novel, and as though the solutions just fell into Dee’s lap rather than Dee figuring them out herself.

Another aspect I was disappointed in was the romance. It felt like it came out of no where, jumping from one step to the very end without any of the steps in-between. While I was rooting for the romance in the beginning, I found myself becoming less and less attached as the story progressed because I never actually got to see the characters fall in love or why they fell in love. I'm fully aware this novel isn't about romance, but since it's there I think the author could have interwoven a stronger relationship by just taking a little more time throughout the novel to build it, all the while keeping it a side plot.

This leads me into the characters. Like the romance, I found I wasn't overly attached to any of them as I was more focused on the plot itself. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because while I wasn't attached I did like the characters for the most part. Dee was a strong enough lead and I definitely felt she made some frustrating choices throughout the novel, but they still all felt true to the character. The author did a good job of keeping the characters consistent, however I would have liked a bit more character growth from Dee.

Overall, the novel as a whole was worth the read, and I'm sure there are other people more satisfied with the ending but unfortunately for me, it didn't quite hit the mark. I would however, recommend it to other readers who enjoy young adult mysteries.

Dee was 7-years-old when her best friend was kidnapped and she was left tied to a tree where they had been playing. Ten years have passed, but Dee has never forgotten Sibby. As a result of the kidnapping she became introverted, and started a podcast to help find missing people to erase the helplessness she felt about not being able to do anything to help Sibby. With the aid of “laptop detectives” around the country who listened to her show, she was able to get clues to solve these mysteries.

When a young girl goes missing from the house where Dee had lived as a child, similarities are drawn to Sibby’s case. Dee pushes back against reporters who want to put her in the spotlight, and her best friends insistence that she use her podcast to solve the case. Her growing relationship and friendship with Sarah, her next door neighbor, helps calm the confusion she’s feeling about whether or not to get involved and gives her courage to do what needs to be done. What she doesn’t know is that the nightmare in which Sibby had found herself was lying in wait for her too.

I loved, loved, LOVED this book! As Sibby and Dee’s stories were slowly revealed, the suspense kept me turning pages. My list of suspects grew higher in this whodunit, and then plummeted with each reveal. Ryan did a great job tying a knot at the end of the book. I love his last sentence. Touché!

Highly recommended for ages 14 and older.

I received a digital advance reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book follows Dee, a high schooler living in small town who is trying to deal with her childhood best friend's traumatic abduction and the guilt she feels over her role in it. To cope with this, she starts a podcast raising awareness for other people who have gone missing in hopes that by sharing information, she can help save others, like she was unable to do for Sibby. When another young girl goes missing from the same woods that Sibby did 10 years ago, Dee's past is brought back up to the surface, and she must try and find clues to find both girls.

I enjoyed reading this book quite a bit. Dee was a very loveable character, and I enjoyed her dynamic with her family greatly. While Dee definitely did make some poor decisions, she was a great protagonist with an intelligent and witty narration that kept me engaged throughout the book. Dee's best friend, Burke, was a bit annoying, but in a way that seemed very realistic for a teenage boy. The plot was fast-paced and interesting, and the book's mystery was well constructed.

My main issue with this book was the romance. While I really liked the love interest and thought that the pair had good chemistry, I feel as though there was a major missed opportunity for a more nuanced relationship, as the development felt quite rushed. One minute, they were friends, and the next, they were girlfriends. It felt like it was coming out of nowhere, which was a shame, as the pair were really great together. I love seeing F/F romance so casually in a book and I am glad that the romance wasn't the main subplot, as it is always so great to see WLW relationships treated as normal parts of life, but I would have liked to have seen more attention placed on developing their relationship.

Additionally, I am unsure about how I feel about the ending of the book. While I can't really discuss it without spoiling the whole thing, it was certainly unexpected, and I'm not sure if I was a fan or not. On one hand, portions of it, specifically the circumstances surrounding Sibby's disappearance, were so interesting and compelling, while others seemed a bit anti-climatic for me. It did still leave me satisfied, though, so I definitely did enjoy enough aspects of this book's wrap-up to still have enjoyed the overall book.

Overall, this was an endearing and exciting book that I would recommend to YA mystery lovers, especially those looking to diversify their bookshelves with more LGBTQ+ rep! A huge thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for supplying me with an ARC of this book.

I Hope You’re Listening is a beautiful story of hope, overcoming trauma, and finding light in the darkness.

Delia “Dee” Skinner is a smart, dedicated young girl at the center of solving a missing persons case. The combination of using mainstream media and classic sleuthing and detective skills was done wonderfully. Dee’s Radio Silence podcast is a fun concept and a highlight of this book.

The suspense had me holding my breath. I don’t typically read many mysteries, but Dee and Sibby’s story had me enthralled from beginning to end. The story flows at a perfect pace to keep you on your feet. Tom Ryan allows us to experience Dee’s normalcy and trauma in a balance that makes her character one that readers will connect with and sympathize with all at once.

Each of the major character dynamics and relationships was solid enough without feeling forced, and each major role in the mystery played out in a satisfying conclusion. Some additional secondary characters, though not entirely fleshed out, did at least add to the realism and common, familiar feel of the town.

Note: Tom Ryan is a friend of mine. Also #netgalley provided this book free of charge. Neither of these facts influenced my review.

What a ride. I Hope You're Listening is one of those books where I ACTUALLY STAYED UP WAY TOO LATE to finish. There's a tipping point where it would be impossible to simply go to sleep without knowing.
The characters are great. The plot moves quickly and with grace. The writing is excellent. Best of all, it wraps up in such a satisfying way which does not betray the set-up. Normally you feel thrown in the wrong direction in mysteries. With this, you feel tipped slightly in the wrong direction, but not because the plot demands misdirection, but only because what happens here would very likely be exactly what would happen with a crime such as this.
The Podcast element is well done and adds a second and third element to the book.

I highly recommend this.

Another great mystery from Tom Ryan! I loved Keep This to Yourself, so I was excited to read I Hope You're Listening. Thank you Netgalley and Albert Whitman & Co. for the advance e-copy!

I really liked many of the characters in this story. Dee was interesting and felt like a fully realized, complex human being. I bought into the way she handled all the events of the plot, her past traumas, and her secret podcaster life. I loved her relationship with her parents and her best friend. And those characters felt fleshed out and realistic, too. On the flip side, the love interest read like a *chill* pixie dream girl, and I didn't quite buy into the relationship. I actually thought maybe a chapter was missing that would've helped establish that, but I don't believe the version I received was incomplete.

As for the story, the pacing is unique. Some readers may be turned off, but I was drawn into it right away. It starts slowly. We're introduced to 3 mysteries, plus the requisite exposition, and it takes some time. However, Tom Ryan is so great with atmosphere and description that I was never bored. I was hooked from the way Dee describes her house and bedroom in the first few pages. Once everything is underway, it proceeds like a procedural throughout the middle, then blows up at the end. Almost everything seemed to happen in the final third of the book. Some readers may not like this, but I felt like I could put my trust in the author and enjoy it.

Without spoilers, the main mystery had a strong, satisfying ending. Another felt a little rushed. The last one was more of a subplot, and I loved the way it tied into the climactic scene.

Speaking of which, I really enjoyed the themes that are woven into the story. A major one is female empowerment, where we see women working in solidarity, telling their own stories, and a hint of advocacy for women of color. I also liked the exploration of how our experiences make up our identities and how easy it is to get caught up in a cycle of asking "What if?" about the past.

Overall, I'd recommend this intriguing and atmospheric mystery, and I'm always here for queer rep!

Ten years after her best friend gets kidnapped, Dee Skinner is haunted with memories of that day. She secretly created and hosts a podcast to bring attention to current missing persons cases, and to connect members of an online community who work to solve them. When another girl is taken from Dee’s town, there are too many similarities to ignore, so she begins her own investigation into her many unanswered questions.

This book was everything I was expecting – a high interest, well-paced mystery that hooked me throughout, and an ending that tied up all of the pieces into a neat little bow. There were enough clues to keep me guessing, but nothing so obvious that I was able to solve everything on my own.

The story would benefit if the characters were more dynamic and developed throughout the entire book. During the first half I started to get invested in them, and then bam! The best friend is dropped and replaced by a love interest. This shift completely lost me. I was frustrated with the way the main character behaved and handled the friendship, and I couldn’t get into the new character or buy into their romance. Overall it didn’t detract too much from the plot. I still found the book quite enjoyable and would certainly recommend it to middle school mystery fans.

Thank you to NetGalley for the complimentary eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really like this one! Even when I predicted what was happening it was fun finding out I was right. But I didn’t figure it ALL out and that was great too. The characters were really interesting as well.

Thank you to netgalley and Tom Ryan/Albert Whitman & Co for letting me read this!

3.5 stars
First of all, i want to start by pointing out all the things that I love in this book.
-this isn't a coming-out-i'm-queer book, but rather the identity of being queer is something that is widely accepted in the setting in this story
-how the author portrayed a queer relationship quite realistically (which I think is very well done in a YA book, without the exaggerating I felt electricity in their touch kind of thing)
-some people may say this book is similar to Radio Silence, but the only similarity is the podcast tbh

ok, now for the not so satisfying bit
-I would like to know more about Dee and her childhood friends' character and personality (especially Sibby) before the incident happened, because I didn't feel much connection to Sibby, and even think Sibby's sister gave off more impressions
-SPOILER: Dee is a very character that is haunted by her pasts, and while I can understand the loss, she could have chosen to be more considerable towards Burke and Brianna after the half of this book
-SPOILER: it would be more realistic if the ongoing cases were disclosed as unknown, given that there were so many cases irl that have gone terribly wrong.

I Hope You're Listening is a compelling mystery, and a quick and entertaining read.
When Dee was 7, her best friend Sibby was taken, grabbed by two masked men in the woods where she and Dee were playing. Dee was left behind, and Sibby was never found. Dee is now 17 and she's lived with the guilt of being left behind for 10 years. She presents a tough exterior to the world, and she's something of a loner, with just one close friend. But Dee has a big secret: she's the anonymous host of the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent. Known as the Seeker, Dee uses her podcast to investigate missing people. Solving other people's disappearances brings her some peace, but when a little girl who lives in Dee's old house goes missing, it seems like the past is repeating itself.

I really liked this book. It has two interesting mysteries: what happened to Sibby all those years ago and the new disappearance of the little girl. The two cases appear to have similarities, and it forces Dee to revisit Sibby's disappearance. Dee is a great character. She's closed herself off from the world, and her podcast has become something of an obsession. Her listeners are referred to as the Laptop Detective Association, and the podcast has led to a number of solved cases. The concept of the podcast and the work that Dee is doing is very cool, and I really enjoyed this aspect of the book.

Dee has a lot of character growth. She has to face what happened in the past and find a way to move forward. She finds herself on the outs with her only friend because of her reluctance to use the podcast to investigate Sibby's disappearance or the new mystery, while she opens herself up to a possible romance with a new girl who moves in across the street (both girls are unapologetically queer, and it's refreshing that it's not an issue at all in the story). Her journey in figuring out how to deal with trauma and move on is really well done.

Unsurprisingly, I love podcasts. Even more unsurprisingly, I love fictionalized stories that use the trappings of true crime podcasting to their advantage. Limetown, Sadie, The Black Tapes Podcast (in earlier seasons, before it got bad) - all of these pieces of media are near and dear to my heart in ways I can't begin to explore here. When I see a piece of media involving a fictionalized podcast, I have to get my hands on a copy as soon as humanly possible. This book was no different.

The story of Dee Skinner and her missing best friend would've been interesting enough on its own, but Dee's desire to channel her anxieties and survivors' guilt into a podcast to find other missing women was a unique and realistic twist on the plot. As much as I tend to prefer stories that use the podcasting medium as a means of providing narrative distance or hiding mysteries from the audience, I felt that allowing Dee to tell her story through her podcast, in this specific story, was actually preferable as it allowed us to understand her personality and interests in ways that simply telling us "Dee is inquisitive and feels personally responsible for her friend's disappearance" wouldn't've.

My major complaint is that ending. Oh, that ending. I won't spoil it here, but suffice it to say, it was abrupt. For the first 85% or so of the book, we'd settled into a nice slow-burn mystery, when all of a sudden... well, something unexpected occurred (and not in a Hot Fuzz fun kind of unexpected, where the joke is how surreal the ending of the mystery is.) No, this was an 'oh crap, I gotta tie up loose ends' sort of unexpected, and while it didn't ruin the book for me, it did decrease my rating somewhat. In the end, however, this is still a likable and poignant read about family, friendship, trauma, and healing. Oh, and podcasts too.