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

Jumps around too much

Any additional comments?

This book had too many insignificant characters that were given too much "screentime," for a lack of an equivalent reading/listening word. The book jumps around way too much, not just between different groups of people and not just into different times, but with different groups of people in different times. It doesn't just jump between 1962 and the present - it jumps to 2005, 1970, 1980, etc. It just gets to be too much.

A good book or movie allows you to suspend reality - no matter how strange or unrealistic the plot is. But this book was very poorly written and I just couldn't imagine anything like this ever happening.

The narrator was very good though.

What a fun book to listen to

Great story with many fascinating sub plots that intertwine and come together very well. I liked the humorous way the author builds the characters, and sets up a story involving historical events, celebrities and different time periods. I often found myself laughing out loud.

Great combo of writing and narration

What did you love best about Beautiful Ruins?

It was beautifully written and the narration was among the best. Ballerini is skillful at moving between different voices and accents in a way that brings the individual characters alive.

What did you like best about this story?

I really enjoyed all of the different story lines that converged at the end. It had humor, sadness, conflict, and resolution. A very satisfying read....or listen!

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

n/a

Wonderful novel!

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

A must read or listen

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

This was my first listen by Edoardo Ballerini, but I will definitely seek him out.

Not bad but not great.

Good storyline that may be a bit over written. Excellent audio performance including the different accents. Dialogue was funny early on.

Fabulous!

This book grabs the reader immediately and just never lets go. It is the kind of book to return to, to re-read, to savor, to reflect. This reviewer reads a lot, enjoys and moves on to the next book. Only rarely does a book and its story and characters remain catalogued as a great read! Beautiful Ruins is one of those! I am grateful to have found it and will hold it in my "best reads" spot.

I didn't want this book to end!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely...it is so descriptive, and feels like you are actually at this hotel on the Amalfi coast.

Which scene was your favorite?

When Dee and Pasquale meet again as older versions of themselves.

If you could take any character from Beautiful Ruins out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Pasquale..he seemed like such a nice, pleasant man.

Any additional comments?

I loved it!

Well written!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Definitely recommend. It's rare to find a writer that can weave a story like Walters with witty dialogue. The performance by Ballerini was special.

So happy I read it!

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

It started off slow. I was confused at first by so many characters and time lines. But once I got into it, I was hooked! It was a truly great read.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Dee. She was a smart character.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I cried at the end.

Written by a man --

Where does Beautiful Ruins rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This audiobook was an average listen, story-wise.

What about Edoardo Ballerini’s performance did you like?

Edoardo Ballerini's performance was vey nice, however.

Any additional comments?

Beautiful Ruins seemed to me to be so clearly written from a male perspective. Characters in the story could be observed, but there was very little to be learned from them. If the author did this intentionally, then he did an exceptional job. If this was not his intention, then there was an opportunity missed to reveal inner workings of some beautiful ruins -- human as we are.