The Raising

A Novel

By: Laura Kasischke

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Length: 17 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The accident was tragic, yes. Bloody and horrific and claiming the life of a beautiful young sorority girl. Nicole was a straight-A student from a small town. Sweet-tempered, all-American, a former Girl Scout, and a virgin. But it was an accident. And that was last year. It’s fall again, a new semester, a fresh start.

Craig, who has not been charged with murder, is focusing on his classes, and also on avoiding Nicole’s sorority sisters, who seem to blame him for her death even though the police did not.

Perry, Craig’s roommate, is working through his own grief (he grew up with Nicole, after all, and had known her since kindergarten) by auditing Professor Polson’s sociology class: Death, Dying, and the Undead.

Mira has been so busy with her babies—two of them, twins, the most perfect boys you could imagine but still a nearly impossible amount of work even with Clark’s help—that she can barely keep herself together to teach (Death, Dying and the Undead), let alone write the book she’ll need to publish for tenure.

And Shelly, who was the first person at the scene of the accident, has given up calling the newspapers to tell them that, despite the “lake of blood” in which they keep reporting the victim was found, the girl Shelly saw that night was not bloody, and not dead.

©2011 Laura Kasischke (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“[A] literary page-turner, reminiscent of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.” ( Booklist)

Interesting, You Choose What Really Happened

The Raising involves a college sorority and the strange happenings on a college campus. You can decide what really happened but it's a interesting mystery with several possibilities.

Dreadful and way too long

How is it possible that a story can be so melodramatic without anything actually happening? The narrator's whiney voice and rolled "r"s and whistled "s"s only accentuate the overdone narrative, where everything is stated at least 6-7 times in different words, going on and on. I would have liked the book better, I think, if the narrator had been a bit more mature sounding - instead, the voices all sound like little kids, especially the women, the sorority girls who cry and moan about their "panties", most unattractive of words.

yaaaawwwwnnnn

I've listened to "in a perfect world" several times and love it each time. "The Raising", however, seems to meander all over the place and is so boring that it's not even a good time-killer. The narrator is unpleasant to listen to, which creates a story impossible to finish. I gave it two stars, only because I never finished the last few hours and didn't want to trash something I can't say I experienced in full. Very disappointed, I'm sad to say.

Unfinished

I somewhat agree with the others when they complain about the author, her voice is annoying, and specifically the voice she did for Josie was awful. But this book is soooo long that after a few hrs I became numb to her weird lilts and odd accent.
The story itself feels so unfinished! I finished this book a few days ago, and it is still bothering me that it wasn't concluded... I don't need authors to always spell out the ending and hand it to me with a pretty pink bow... but in the case of this book she didn't even really end it. There is the huge mystery of the girl dying, or did she die? This is what the entire story is about, but it is never really answered. There are many ppl involved in trying to figure this out, and you get their opinions and conclusions, but nothing is concrete. And in the meantime these sorority girls are ruining the lives of ppl around them, including their profs. And there is this whole thing about virgins who are really sluts, and we all know that guys talk so there is no way that these girls can sleep around like that and still have an entire campus think they are virgins. Its ridiculous. It just droned on and on and on. I only finished it because I wanted to know what happened, but, I'll never know.
Strongly dislike when a book ends without closure. When the ruined lives remain ruined years later. When the "bad guys" never get caught. When the mystery is never solved. It just leaves me feeling empty and unfinished. Bah!