One Degree of Separation

By: Karin Kallmaker

Narrated by: Quinn Riley

Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Marian Pardoo, reference librarian for the Iowa City Public Library, would be happy if the woman she's loved for years wasn't already married. Annoyed by the thoughtless out-of-town Liddy, she isn't prepared for the seething passion that erupts when Liddy careens into her meticulously controlled life.

Liddy has run two thousand miles from a devastating love affair. Now the idea of spending the sweltering summer watching the corn grow is driving her mad. Finding herself lusting after Marian the librarian seems like yet another cosmic jest at her hopeless love life. The only thing that keeps her sane is the coffee.

In a town where everybody knows your name, the names of your exes, pets, and your third grade teacher, Marian is thankful that she and Liddy at least don't have an ex-girlfriend in common.

One degree of separation is too close for comfort.

©2003 Karin Kallmaker (P)2023 Tantor

Beautiful!

This was a beautifully written love story! Liddy had no intention of failing in love during her eighth week stay in Iowa City. Her plan was recover from a broken heart and do research for a novel a famous writer had commissioned her to do. Then she met Mariam the librarian and all those plans went out the window. Ironically, Mariam was also not interested in falling in love since she also was working on healing her broken heart.

Thus the story begins and the angst, and the push/pull the begins to build between them is beautiful to observe.

Kallmaker has always been one of my all time favorite writer and this story is the reason why she still. The plot development flowed so smoothly between the two protagonists; it was beautiful to watch,

The supporting characters were also great! Can’t say enough about them to them justice.

The narration was exquisite and flowed very smoothly! Well done!

Not what I expected.

This story started off slow and all over the place, I honestly was going to just stop. It was getting on my nerves. I kept listening, and finally, it was making sense, and I ended up liking it. I didn't quite love it but I finished it. love Karen Kallmaker and most of her books, I absolutely love Quinn Riley as the narrator.

Fun characters

I’ve been to Iowa City and had no idea about its hidden gems. Wonderful narrator and story.

Loved this book

I love thé way Karin Kallmaker writes and this one was written in 2003, si the sex scene are not very explicit and I like that. A little mystery is good.
I was not sure about Quinn Riley but she was excellent

Confusing jumble of a story with a good backbone

Though I would say I understood the overall gist of the book, I nevertheless felt confused at certain points as to who was speaking or who was performing a certain action. What was chosen to focus on seemed odd to me at different points, dwelling on trivialities and glossing over or eliding pivotal moments almost entirely. That said, I overall enjoyed the characters, for the most part.

A good read about wonderful characters

Would definitely recommend. So glad to have some KK to listen to. Have been writing audible asking for more for 3 years.

Enjoyed the story immensely, especially once it was whittled down for a bit to the two MCs.

Pros: The characters were well done, well liked after a layer or two was removed to move you into their story. It was realistic but intriguing to be part of a story of the two who were not planning on the direction they headed in. Love Karin”s ability to write easy and realistic inner and outer dialogue. Loved the middle America setting, middle class jobs.

Con: it was hard to keep track of who was talking in some scenes - some. When the group got large the narrator didn’t have quite enough character differentiation for a table full of characters but the scenes were infrequent enough to get through them.

Aged language

The story overall was ok. I expected better honestly. I’m a fan of Quinn Riley as a narrator so I gave this a try - but even she couldn’t make it enjoyable.

First Karin Kallmaker book I’ve read of listened to. I should have looked up more information on the book to see what year it came out in. The book came out in 2003, and I didn’t realize I needed to prepare myself for that time period where cell phones and the internet weren’t super popular.

My main complaint was the over usage of “I swear to freakin’ God” almost every time a character had an internalized monologue or that “dike” was said in every over sentence - and yes I am using the spelling for rocks rather than the intended by the book as to avoid vulgarity.
Perhaps it was just a different time 20 years ago. But the writer’s story was choppy and in the beginning muddled in parts with more than 3 characters.

Nothing great about it. But maybe it was 20 years ago. Some books stand the time of time - this one didn’t.