Kate Winslet's narrative is brilliant. The story is long french suffering. But Kate captures the character's essense and dances effortlessly with the "lugubrious" text.

I have rated this with 3 in two categories to prevent an overinflated total score. Listening to this book was torture, not because it was poorly written but because the characters suffer through hell and I suffered right along with them. At one point I caught myself saying aloud, "But what have I done to deserve all this suffering?" If you want to become immersed in their story and have the stomach for what on paper must be about 100 pages of agony, I can recommend this book. It appears that Zola was very concerned with making his morality tale compelling, assuring that those who have sinned do not experience one positive effect from that sin.
Kate Winslet's performance is masterful, however. She captures the personalities, emotions, the tone of the scenes and settings flawlessly.

Dark, Powerfull and interesting

Kate Winslet

Leading up to the accident

When the mother finally understood and ac knowledged to herself that she knew what had happened to her son.

A classic

That it was read by Kate Winslet

not really, don't feel enriched or touched by the story

Not yet

No, I would be afraid I would get bored

Good story, could only have been told in half of the time, pages and words

Knowing this was not going to end well did not stop me from listening to this anymore than any pair in adulterous love affair was ever stoped. This is an old story, twisted and dramatically emotional. All the spousal killers amoung us should take heed. Karma at it's best.

I have stayed away from Zola for years despite many fitfull starts, because the "slow build up" kills a slow reader like myself. I never got to the good stuff. This ebbed and flowed and built like a tide in which the characters slowly rose to my neck. If you want Zola I highly recommend this as the was to go....However, tortured love is still like watching his characters bleed to death in a hot tub after slashing their wrists.

Hands down the best performance I have heard. Voice changes so effectively convey mood, change of character,s and atmosphere that I was entralled.

No

Please use narrator again!

Kate's performance is definitely not disappointing, but the book itself is not that interesting. All those mental struggle over one thing, and the end. Not my type of book.

Certainly this is a classic and Kate Winslet does an admirable job presenting it, but the guilt and the angst in this novel become exhausting to listen to. On the positive side, it can be said, that after listening to this novel, I would never kill my husband, but would opt instead for a nice tidy divorce. Given that, I could see where my husband would find 'Therese Raquin' an even more valuable work than I did.

No, I would not recommend this story because it depressed me. It is so sad that it is actually annoying. If you like a kind of depressing soap drama story, then this book is for you. For me though, it was just depressing and did not interest me. That said, it is a good portrait of human nature, but again, a depressing one.

I thought the writing of Zola will be old and boring, but his writing is superb and i as a listener was captivated.

I loved the skilled descriptive writing of Zola.

Kate acts out the different characters with great skill.

It made me laugh. The characters are larger than life (maybe) and sometimes seem to be caricatures.

This story would be better if we didn't have to listen to the tortured thoughts of the two main characters going on about the same topic over and over and over again.

If any of the characters were admirable or likable in any way it would be a more enjoyable book.

Kate Winslet performed the story well, and her pronunciations of all the French names and words really added to the story.

There was a good moral to the story, and the ending was very good.