Audiobook Review : The Mother-in-law by Sally Hepworth
Written By: amodini
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Feb•
09•22
Author : Sally Hepworth
Narrators : Barrie Kreinik
Genre : Mystery
Publisher : Macmillan Audio
Listening Length : 9 hours 12 minutes
Rating : 1/5
Narrator Rating : 2/5
Lucy is married to Ollie. Diana and Tom are Ollie’s parents. While Tom is loving and forgiving towards his children (Ollie also has a sister Antoinette) Diana appears cold and at a remove. Lucy who’d hoped to find a mother figure in her mother-in-law after marriage, is disappointed by Diana’s reserved demeanor. The rift deepens with a couple of other altercations between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. When Diana turns up dead, Lucy isn’t quite drowning in grief.
I’ve seen this book listed in so many bestseller lists, and I can’t figure out why. I’d expected a thriller when I picked it up – it is not that. I’d anticipated a murder mystery which it definitely is not – it moves too slowly for that. It is more of a contemporary tale, about people and their differences, with a murder thrown in – and even that it doesn’t do well.
Firstly there’s too much telling and not enough showing here. Secondly, everything is explained and underscored. The book is told through alternative viewpoints – Lucy’s and Diana’s. And even their narratives are divided up into the past, and the current time. During a conversation, the conversation just doesn’t happen and sit there, for the reader to mull through. No, it is explained to an inch of its life, which robs the telling of any intrigue or charm it might have had otherwise.
The characters are pretty inconsistent. They appear to be one way, and behave in just the opposite manner without rhyme and reason, which really threw me. For example, the mother-in-law Diana runs a charity to help new immigrants/refugees and goes out of her way to help them. But then to her family she is cold and unhelpful, which seems so out of character for a normally empathetic woman.
This book is drowning in minutiae – I feel like I learned so many useless details that I didn’t care about and which didn’t help flesh out the characters or their motivations. The ending was weak and absurd, and the plot had gaping logical holes.
When it started out, the book seemed interesting, but at Part 4 (of this 8 part audiobook) I was very tempted to just not finish it. I only kept going because I wanted to find out the identity of the killer. Narrator Kreinik sounded monotonous and similar in all the characters she portrayed.
I’d expected so much out of this set-in-Australia book; my experiences with other Australian authors (Liane Moriarty, Jane Harper) have been quite good. The Mother-in-law was a disappointment.
Book Review : The Blue Castle by L.M.Montgomery
Written By: amodini
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Jan•
12•22
Author : L.M.Montgomery
Genre : Romance
Publisher : Bantam
Pages : 224
Rating : 2.5/5
Valancy Stirling, considered an old maid at 29, lives with her family who put her down and poke fun at her every chance they get. Her only solace is reading books by her favorite author John Foster and dreaming of her fictional Blue Castle.
Valancy puts up with her family’s poor treatment of her, but when she realizes that she has a terminal condition and not much more time to live she decides to live out the rest of her days as she sees fit and starts speaking her mind. Her family members are horrified at this new outspoken Valancy and even further outraged when Valancy decides to take up a job which will have her moving out of the house and in with some very disreputable characters. Once out of the clutches of her nagging family, Valancy becomes much happier, makes good friends and even manages to fall in love with a Barney Snaith (a very unsuitable man). Bit it is all for naught, because the end – it is a-coming . . .
I read this book because of a suggestion on a Reddit discussion and while this is a pleasant old-fashioned romance (it was written in 1926) in the vein of “My Fair Lady” – as in poor, over-whelmed damsel in distress is plucked out of bad situation and ends up with the Prince of her Dreams etc. , I can’t see what the fuss is about. Although Valancy was an endearing protagonist – she has gumption and wit – and it is satisfying to see the villains of this story get their comeuppance, the plot details with Barney Snaith, his island home and his mysterious lifestyle got pretty flaky. This might, in the modern world pass off as a YA romance, full of wishful/fantastical details, but this seemed too fanciful for adult reading.
If you’re looking for a fairy tale romance, this one’s for you.
Audiobook Review : Payment In Blood by Elizabeth George
Written By: amodini
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Dec•
15•21
Author : Elizabeth George
Narrators : Davina Porter
Genre : Mystery
Publisher : Recorded Books
Listening Length : 14 hours 35 minutes
Rating : 4.2/5
Narrator Rating : 4.5/5
Even though I’ve now read a handful of Inspector Lynley books, and find her work just as engrossing as Agatha Christie’s although in a more modern way, Payment In Blood seems closest to Agatha Christie’s mysteries, and a little similar to the recent film “Knives Out” in that it is a mystery played out in one location – a remote B&B/resort in the Scottish Highlands. A play is being planned and the playwright, producer and actors have gathered together in a small village B&B. The playwright Joan Sinclair then gets murdered by a Scottish dirk through her throat. Inspector Thomas Lynley, Sergeant Barbara Havers and forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James are summoned to solve the mystery, to their surprise because the area is out of their normal jurisdiction, but matters are complicated further because the string of suspects – and there are many – includes Lady Helen Clyde, the woman Lynley loves.
Since the murder has happened at the isolated estate which houses the resort, the local police have managed to quarantine the guests there, and the police officers begin to question them. While Lynley’s judgment is clouded by jealousy – it comes out that Lady Helen had spent the night with one of actors of the party – Havers and St. James must use their impartial wits to uncover the truth.
I believe in my previous reviews of Elizabeth George’s books, I have written odes in praise of the author’s skill as a mystery writer. She is in top form here as well, building us a nest of red herrings. The characters of this book – people in the theater party – while being proficient and well-known in the industry go back a long time and have known each other enough to develop friendships, relationships, rifts and jealousies. Some of them are connected by marriages (and divorces), and there are even a pair of sisters who have little love for each other. It is a large cast of characters but George manages to keep us on the straight and narrow and weave in all the threads beautifully, to give us a sumptuous, juicy mystery.
Narrator Davina Porter is wonderful. I haven’t heard her before but look forward to listening to more of her work.
Audiobook Review : A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
Written By: amodini
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Nov•
17•21
Author : Tracy Chevalier
Narrators : Fenella Woolgar
Genre : Historical
Publisher : Penguin Audio
Listening Length : 10 hours 51 minutes
Rating : 4/5
Narrator Rating : 5/5
I’ve read two of Tracy Chevalier’s books before – Remarkable Creatures about young fossil hunter Mary Anning, and Girl With a Pearl Earring. I have liked both. Chevalier’s main characters often are women, women who don’t want to/can’t abide by society’s rules. Out of need or necessity, they pick their own path, choosing interesting vocations or hobbies – which Chevalier describes in great detail and are a pleasure to read about. She has a way of writing which builds characters with depth. We know who they are, what they think and how they might behave.
In A Single Thread, 38 year old spinster Violet Speedwell has moved out of her carping mother’s house and come away to be a single woman in the town of Winchester, penury-ridden though that existence might be. Pragmatic Violet knows that she is regarded as a “surplus” woman, and will probably remain single after the death of her fiancé in the Great War, dependent upon her mother and brother. Her initial loneliness is lessened when she comes across the broderer community of the local Winchester Cathedral, a group of women who volunteer their time to embroider and make kneelers – cushions which church-goers use to make the hard stone benches a little more comfortable during time spent in the church.
Typist by day and borderer now, in her free time, Violet makes new friends – Gilda, Dorothy and Arthur (the bell-ringer). She finds comfort in her new found friends, and is finally finding a place and a life for herself. Her new found independence brings other changes – she tries a walking vacation all by herself, which is unusual for the times. Little by little her non-traditional life begins to sort itself out. She already has convictions; now she gains the courage to go with them.
A Single Thread is a marvelous read. I liked Violet Speedwell. She is an interesting, sympathetic protagonist, and her story with its difficulties and dilemmas is arresting. Narrator Fenella Woolgar is superb and a pleasure to listen to. Highly recommended.
Audiobook Review : Educated by Tara Westover
Written By: amodini
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Oct•
20•21
Author : Tara Westover
Narrators : Julia Whelan
Genre : Non-fiction; Memoir
Publisher : Random House Audio
Listening Length : 12 hours 10 minutes
Rating : 4.3/5
Narrator Rating : 4.5/5
In this book, author Tara Westover describes her childhood with her parents and her siblings on a rural farm in Idaho. Her father is what we would term a conspiracy theorist, someone who’s rabidly anti-government, convinced that the government is out to get him and his family, subjugate them and take away their rights. Thus, he is always predicting the end of the world and preparing himself and his family for it – storing food, fuel, ammunition and supplies in underground bunkers for the day that they will need them. Her mother, although initially displaying an independence of spirit, later becomes devoted to her husband’s theories and becomes equally complicit in an abusive family life where the children seemingly have no voice and are prevented from going to school or develop interests outside of the home.
Tara manages to leave the family home by getting into college by the skin of her teeth, often wondering whether she will have the money to pay for her tuition and board. As she learns about various world events and gets a perspective of her own, she begins to view her life in her parental home, a home that she does not go back to, as the abuse that it actually is.
In her details about her day-to-day life, she painstakingly sketches a portrait of her parents and some of her siblings. They all work on the family business – her father’s junkyard often in dangerous conditions. None of them actually go to school or receive much of a homeschooling. Tara teaches herself the basics and studies for the ACT. Learning and science is pooh-poohed upon; the Westovers do not go see doctors, even for serious injuries.
Some of the situations Tara faces are harrowing but her description is unflinching yet never cruel. The affection, if I can call it that, that tinges this memoir probably comes from the fact that even though she now understands the abuse she’s suffered at their hands, they are still her parents and her family, and that mountain farm was still her childhood home. Her journey is remarkable and her tenacious courage in standing up for what she believes in is to be applauded. This book was an engrossing tale and read almost like fiction. Highly recommended.
I’ve heard two books by narrator Julia Whelan before – Gone Girl and The Wife Between Us. She is just as good as she was narrating those books, does male and female voices equally well, and gives apt voice to Westover’s tumultuous emotions.
