Beautiful Ruins

By: Jess Walter

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Fiction and Best Solo Narration, 2013

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning 50 years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist, and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion - along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

©2012 Jess Walter (P)2012 HarperCollins Publisher

Loved the past/present storyline

If you could sum up Beautiful Ruins in three words, what would they be?

Intriguing, romantic, historical

Who was your favorite character and why?

Dee, the failed actress who missed hollywood fame by a slip of fate and goes on with stoicism

Any additional comments?

Loved this listen

OUTSTANDING STORY AND PRESENTATION

This story fascinated me, holding my interest to the end. The narrator provided authenticity to the characters with his rich Italian accent. Highly recommended.

Fun Summer Read

Story was thoroughly enjoyable. The description and action in Italy was as if you were there and could see that tennis court overhanging the cliffs. The narrator did an excellent job. The story which was told past and present all came together in a very satisfying way and the journey was quite enjoyable.

Clever and Well Crafted

I enjoyed this fictional novel that has incorporated some real life celebrities into it. The plot was well paced and kept me listening to this sweeping, character-driven, somewhat historical story that begins in 1962 and ends in the present. The story is richly imagined with all the characters' details wrapped up in the end. Can't say I "liked" all the characters or situations they get themselves into, but that contributes to the last chapters.

Well worth a credit and time, in my opinion.

Fantastic Story

I enjoy listening to this story so much. The reader flawlessly changes character voices, language and accent so seamlessly you feel like you’re listening to a group of actors and not just one voice. I’m so glad I gave this book a try!

Liked it better than The Zero

Any additional comments?

Thanks to Ballerini's virtuoso performance, this is a book I'd advise everyone to "ear read" instead of "eye read." His Richard Burton is especially perfect, and he seems to be channeling Lauren Bacall for Dee as well. The book was well wrought, never dull or superficial, but the attempts at final profundity at the end felt a bit forced to me.

Slow start but worth the read

After listening to the first few chapters I almost didn't continue. I wasn't very impressed with the story line, but it got better and held my interest. I felt like this book could have used some heavy editing, a bit repetitive.

Title does not fit the book

What made the experience of listening to Beautiful Ruins the most enjoyable?

Edoardo Ballerini does a great job of story teller.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Pasqualli

Have you listened to any of Edoardo Ballerini’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

If I had time, yes

Any additional comments?

This is my first book by the author, Jess Walter. It will not be my last. Beautiful Ruins is a good story. . I highly recommend this book

Great Book

This audiobook transports you to another time where the characters live through time in Italy where life was full of adventure and romance. A smooth transition brings the characters to present time, but always dreaming of their life as it could have been.

Onegreat story buried by too many sub-plots

What did you like best about Beautiful Ruins? What did you like least?

Bawled, bawled, bawled my eyes out at the end, because I bonded so deeply with Pasquale. This book has a *very* strong main character, and his (Pasquale's) story was woven so beautifully.

The problem is, there are so many other characters and time frames and story lines, and they were completely ordinary (as far as books go) and uninteresting to me. So the book seemed to be about 25 - 30% good (Pasquale's story), and the rest...wasteful fillers. It has one of the best endings of just about any book I've read (again, the Pasquale part), but I'm not sure it was worth slogging through the rest of the stuffing to get to it where the characters were unlikable and seemingly insignificant. Parts of the book were very poetically and almost musically written, very talented prose. Yet I think the main character was too good and strong a character for the rest of this story...he was woven in with a bunch of senseless fluff, which took away from attention to his excellent potential. I wanted to read his story, and had to read past a bunch of other shenanigans to get to it. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Only that good because Pasquale rose to the top.

Would you be willing to try another book from Jess Walter? Why or why not?

No. While I liked the story line about the Pasquale character, there were too many other things going on that polluted a good story.

Have you listened to any of Edoardo Ballerini’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't heard him read an audio book before, but would definitely look for him again. The narrator was one of the best I'd ever heard, ever. Amazing voice, beautiful pace, acted out the characters. Loved the narrator.

Do you think Beautiful Ruins needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. It's done. It spanned a lifetime, and they are at the end of a lifetime when the book closes.

Any additional comments?

If they could make a movie of just Pasquale's story, I'd be there. I fell in love with Pasquale. This story alone was excellent. I think Pasquale was a gem of gold.