Publisher: Tundra Books
Series: NA
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Page Amount: 256
Age Group: Young Adult
A fast-paced mystery, The Voice inside My Head is expected to be a commercial success and a hit with teens. Seventeen-year-old Luke's older sister, Pat, has always been his moral compass, like a voice inside his head, every time he has a decision to make. So when Pat disappears on a tiny island off the coast of Honduras and the authorities claim she's drowned - despite the fact that they can't produce a body - Luke heads to Honduras to find her because he knows something the authorities don't. From the moment of her disappearance, Pat's voice has become real, guiding him to Utila, where she had accepted a summer internship to study whale sharks. Once there, he meets several characters who describe his sister as a very different girl from the one knows. Does someone have a motive for wanting her dead? Determined to get to the bottom of Pat's disappearance, Luke risks everything, including his own life, to find the answer.
I was intrigued by the plot of The Voices Inside My Head for many reasons. First of all, it is a young adult murder mystery, which is a subplot that I haven't explored much of. Also, it takes place on the island of Honduras, and I like reading novels that don't take place in America because it gives a new scenery. Unfortunately, this book fell a little short for me.
First of all, I found the protagonist, Luke, annoying. At some points in the novel, he was obsessed with finding his sister and finding out what happened to her on this mysterious island. And then he will do a complete 360 and start obsessing over drugs, alcohol or Reesie. This really got on my nerves because I couldn't see Luke's rational at certain times in the book. All of the other characters fell flat for me. I didn't have one character that I really enjoyed reading about, all of them were just meh for me. I typically can find at least one character that I end up really liking/loving, but not in this novel. All of the main characters were flat and one-dimensional, and all of the relationships were extremely sudden and didn't have a rhyme or reason to them. This made the book unrealistic, in my opinion. You wouldn't just automatically befriend some random drunk on the boat to the island, would you?
Also, as much as I found the plot intriguing, it was extremely unrealistic. Honestly, this type of investigation between three teenagers would not occur in real life. Sure, it was fast-paced and enjoyable, but extremely unrealistic.
I really enjoyed the setting of this novel. I had the opportunity to go to Honduras on my first cruise that I went on a few years back, but unfortunately it was raining so hard that I couldn't go and explore. Like I mentioned before, not very many novels take place outside the United States so it was refreshing to read a novel that was set on a Caribbean island (especially since the area is one of my favourites).
Overall, this book was enjoyable but nothing that I will remember for the rest of my life. It wouldn't be a book that would automatically come to mind when recommending books to people. It was just... meh. That's the best way to explain how I felt about this novel.
