Julie

This book could have been very good. I read Firefly Lane and liked it; so I expected to enjoy this book as well. The story line was interesting, war stories are not usually told with female military personnel in the lead character.
But I did not enjoy this listen very much. I did not like the narrator. Everything sounded whiney or loud. When Joleen constantly yells at Michael to "go away" I would have imagined it to be a soulful, and very sad "go away," not screams. Betsy's whiney voice got very annoying. And Betsy's behavior would not have been tolerated by the type of mother I envisioned Joleen to be.
Not my favorite.

Books appearing out of no where and a woman living in someone closet sound far fetched but I really liked this book. The story was well developed, as were the characters.

I'm sure many of us "not so thin" gals could relate to Josey's insecurity about her body image as well as interaction with men. Add in the mother she had;(although it was interesting to find out her issues as well) and it's no wonder Josey took her comfort in food.

While listening to the story I thought Josey's new found relationships with Della Lee and Chloe would make a great TV Christmas movie. (And I love all those movies)!

Adam's character was sweet and the perfect "prince charming" to come to her rescue.
Very enjoyable.

This story line was good but it seemed, to me, to have too many characters. At times I got a bit confused. Also, a bit too much information about sub (and sub - sub) characters especially the last chapter.
But the narrator did a great job with all these voices. I really liked his voice.
One thing I was curious about and did not get in the audio was this: How can you use the name of someone like Richard Burton, was this a true story? If yes or no it would have been nice to at least mention it.
Still, all in all, this was an enjoyable listen.

I recently read The Paris Wife which is a story about Hemingway and his first wife. I did not know much about him until then other than he was a famous writer. He was, I hear, a strange character. He evidently would angonize for hours over every work and sentence of his stories. I was then interested in reading one of his novels. Most were way too long for me to try to tackle right now so I chose The Old Man and the Sea because it was short.
I did enjoy the story and his writing was very captivating. I may even try one of his other books sometime. But I did very much enjoy Donald Sutherland narration. A very good listen!

I read this book a few years ago and liked it. The audio version I loved! Interesting concept of having "Death" tell the story. I loved Zusak's descriptive writing ie: giving human characteristics to non human things. Solid development between the main characters.