The Lola Quartet

By: Emily St. John Mandel

Narrated by: Sarah Scott

Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Gavin Sasaki was a promising young journalist in New York City until the day he was fired for plagiarism. The last thing he wants is to sell foreclosed real estate for his sister Eilo's company in their Florida hometown, but he's in no position to refuse her job offer. Plus, there's another reason to go home: Eilo recently met a 10-year-old girl who looks very much like Gavin and has the same last name as his high-school girlfriend, Anna, who left town abruptly after graduation.

Determined to find out if this little girl might be his daughter, Gavin sets off to track down Anna, starting with the three friends they shared back when he was part of a jazz group called The Lola Quartet. As Gavin pieces together their stories, he learns that Anna has been on the run for good reason, and soon his investigation into her sudden disappearance all those years ago takes a seriously dangerous turn.

©2011 Emily St. John Mandel (P)2017 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Result[s] in both sophistication and suspense." ( Publishers Weekly )

"Riveting.... Evocative, intriguing, and complex, this novel is as smooth as the underbelly of a deadly, furtive reptile." ( Library Journal)

Love her writing style

I love the way she tells a story! So engaging, so layered. I couldn’t stop listening.

wanted a longer commute so i could hear more!

this was such an intriguing story, the narrator was incredibly entertaining, really brought the characters alive. loved it!!!

A bleak tale

This is a bleak tale, with all of the characters on a downward spiral leading to the bottom, at the intersection of which is a Florida suburb, filled with snakes, palm laden trees, and burnished sunsets, a dystopian suburbia in moral decline. Wherever the characters flee, they take their flawed psyches, empty, and untethered with them, and nothing nurtures their success or ethics, especially for those as weakly tethered to society as this lot. I felt like I wanted to flee too, to escape my depression, after listening to this story.

Still my favorite author.

If Emily St John Mandel wrote a book about how much she hated me, I would read it and love it. This story and characters are so beautifully written and eloquently described that I feel like it happened to me.

underwhelming

I was excited for this book but it felt a little tired and predictable. Definitely not "thrilling." The narrator was okay but I found her voice for Jack to be annoying and downright goofy.

A novel about broken young people

I've read several Emily St John Mandel novels and enjoyed them greatly, but not this one. All four characters go badly wrong, the plot is mostly implausible, the writing is not up to her standard, and the narration is only adequate. A very depressing tale with only a faint glimmer of hope at the end.

Poor narration/weak plot/predictable characters

I’ve read two other books by this author and really liked them. This one had a weak plot and predictable characters. The author’s voice was so high pitched for the men’s parts she was speaking. Not to mention, they all pretty much sounded the same. It felt like she was reading the book to me.

Couldn’t sympathize with the characters

Although I enjoyed the story and the characters, I didn’t like any of them.
Her other books were better

Dreadful!

This book was dreadful and a waste of time.
The fragmented structure was a distraction.

Protagonist problem

I’ve liked Mandel’s last two novels but this feels very minor. It’s unclear who the protagonist is, if there is one. The two largest characters aren’t terribly sympathetic, which is fine; they aren’t interesting either, which is a problem.