A beautifully written book with an engaging plot.

I really enjoyed this story. I identified with the protagonist very much and the plot lines (of which there are a few) were very contemporary, believable and pertinent. There were many beautiful descriptions of people places and feelings and they were not cliched at all.
The narrator had a beautiful voice, though it seemed too young for the worldliness of the protagonist. I did not like it when she adopted the voice of other characters, especially the mother Beverly and most male characters. I don’t think it’s necessary to do that. Most readers can surely figure out that for themselves. I thought the voice of the mother Beverly was particularly contrived and unjustified. In all the reviews I’ve read, most rave about this as being a tribute to mothers and daughters, but the Mother/ grandmother in this book is given no redeeming features. I was glad to read in the acknowledgements that the author herself had a great relationship with her real mum. Otherwise I imagine the author’s mum would be devastated.

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4 people found this helpful

Excellent book

I love this book. It’s an excellent story, and the protagonist is so true to life. I also love the depiction of Maddy, the main characters daughter. Do yourself a favour and read this one. The narration is also excellent.

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Engaging listen.

This book was a great easy listen. Kept me engaged throughout with the intertwined stories.
Really enjoyed the narration.

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Enjoyable but narration let’s the book down

Was a enjoyable listen - it wasn’t gripping but it was entertaining.

The narrator really let the side down unfortunately, distracting and grating. Her inflections were out of place and annoying. Little “huh’s” of amusement on too many statements wore thin, overused and out of place. Male characters voices - were not acceptable, other character voices were unrecognisable and inconsistent.

I wish whoever chooses narrators had better insight to what can ruin a good story.

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Audible narrator

I enjoyed the book very much, but I found the narrator on Audible over-dramatic to the point where all the characters sounded angry/sarcastic/bitter/hard and it took a while to get used to the unsubtle tone of the story. I think I’d have preferred to read it rather than listen to it.

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1 person found this helpful

Can’t get through this because of awful narration

I wish I’d read the reviews. I’ve been wanting to read this because I admire the author. I never should have bought the audio book. The narration is truly awful - too young (I looked her up and apparently the narrator is 23 - while the protagonist is 40), and she injects the story with wildly inappropriate accents, emphases and inflections. It’s ruining the story for me - I’m abandoning this a third of the way through as it’s making me wince. I might buy the actual book - but maybe not, I feel turned off this story now. Audible really needs to work harder to source relevant narrators. Compared to British audiobooks which are amazing - my other audiobook right now is Circe which has the most magical narration - this one feels like the first reading of a high school play.

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Lacked anything compelling

Much of the storyline felt overly familiar, stuff we’ve all read about in the news over the years and the author has attempted to weave them all together into one narrative. Whilst reasonably successful at that as a goal, the book lacked anything to keep me interested or caring enough. In that sense, I felt like this story was a bit self indulgent. I listened to the end but had I not been unwell I would not have persisted. Unlike others, I didn’t mind the narration other than a few mispronunciations.

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couldn't finish

was so incredibly boring, felt no connection to any character, the narrator was grating and hard to listen to. felt like reading a moderately interesting (to be generous) middle ages woman's diary. The narrators voice often doesn't fit the description of how it says the person is speaking which is frustrating. Took a long time to get use to the unnecessary long pauses too.

Edit: I finished. Hoping for some big reveal or some redeeming quality, nothing. Wildly disappointing, not sure where the good reviews are coming from. Took me 20X longer than usual just to get through it.

SPOILER ALERT -
TLDL of book, journalist writes article that exposes influencer - influencer kills self - influences dad angry and crazy - I influences mum becomes friend - journalist writes biography of influencer (honestly seems irrelevant) journalist has sex a lot, has weird infatuation with young barista that feels empty. Journalist has old gay uncle, lives in his house, might lose the house when he dies, dies, doesn't lose house. Journalist also has young daughter, dad not around, insinuation of a big incident breaking them up, revealed at end he cheated, very underwhelming, story over.

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1 person found this helpful

Slow & uneventful

Kept waiting for it to get better, to get to the good bit. But this never happened.
So slow, I want all that time back

Narration wasn’t quite right. The voice sounds much too young to be that if the main characters. Off putting.

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1 person found this helpful

grating narrator's voice

struugled to listen because of narrstor's intrusive intonation which does not reflect the tone of the writing

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