Author : Emily Beyda
Narrators : Emily Rankin
Genre : Contemporary
Publisher : Random House Audio
Listening Length : 12 hours 26 minutes
Rating : 1/5
Narrator Rating : 3/5
The book blurb for The Body Double compares it to Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a comparison this book does not deserve because it is not even in the same league. Read on to find out more.
Our unnamed narrator is a movie theater concession stand attendant, short on money. When she is offered a lucrative gig – that of a stand-in or double for famous celebrity Rosanna Feld, she takes it without a second thought. Rosanna’s operative Max explains that Rosanna has had a breakdown and needs help keeping up public appearances. The narrator must move to Los Angeles where she will learn Rosanna’s mannerisms and then make appearances as her. This is all hush-hush and for doing as specified she will be handsomely compensated. As she goes through the grooming process though, she realizes that all is not as it seems . . .
This is a very interesting premise, and why I got sucked into listening to this book. It starts off well, with measured descriptions, where we get a sense of the narrator’s life and the decision she must make to steer it to a hopefully better course. However soon the descriptions got repetitive and there wasn’t much going on. The narrator spends much of her time holed up in an apartment, undergoing her transformation (which includes plastic surgery). Her only point of contact is Max, and it never seems odd to her that she never gets to meet Rosanna. She seems extraordinarily gullible and naive, even if for a person escaping a previous miserable life.
As time passes (very slowly) she also becomes increasingly delusional, convinced that the hallowed Rosanna will come visit her and be very pleased with her. Her common sense, in evidence at the beginning of the book, is completely gone, and she doesn’t see any logical holes in her situation. She doesn’t ask any questions or get suspicious. We are never sure if this is because of low self-esteem/difficult childhood, her suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or that she is beginning to lose it. It became very difficult to sympathize with her because she displays no resentment for her poor treatment and makes no plan to escape what is essentially forced captivity. Her deluded ramblings where she strives to “please” Rosanna, convinced that she is the perfect “vessel” for her, got very annoying to listen to.
The Body Double was extremely boring. I kept at it (although I did start skimming, which I normally never do with an audiobook) because I wanted to get to “the twist”. It came at the very end, and was predictable and weak. Narrator Rankin does a passable job, although I suspect she’d do better with a finer book.
