Take Me Apart

A Novel

By: Sara Sligar

Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer, Xe Sands

Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

"What a clever, visceral thriller. A raw, unfiltered twist on gaslighting that challenges how society treats women. It made me sad, angry, and fired up." (Araminta Hall, author of Our Kind of Cruelty)

"I loved this novel so much that I blew off all my responsibilities, turned off my phone, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting. Unforgettable and thought-provoking, Take Me Apart has my highest recommendation." (Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek)

A spellbinding novel of psychological suspense that follows a young archivist's obsession with her subject's mysterious death as it threatens to destroy her fragile grasp on sanity

When the famed photographer Miranda Brand died mysteriously at the height of her career, it sent shock waves through Callinas, California. Decades later, old wounds are reopened when her son Theo hires the ex-journalist Kate Aitken to archive of his mother's work and personal effects.

As Kate sorts through the vast maze of material and contends with the vicious rumors and shocking details of Miranda's private life, she pieces together a portrait of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood, and marriage. But Kate has secrets of her own, including a growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, and when she stumbles across Miranda's diary, her curiosity spirals into a dangerous obsession.

A seductive, twisting tale of psychological suspense, Take Me Apart draws listeners into the lives of two darkly magnetic young women pinned down by secrets and lies. Sara Sligar's electrifying debut is a chilling, thought-provoking take on art, illness, and power, from a spellbinding new voice in literary suspense.

Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year - 2020

A Macmillan Audio production from MCD

©2020 Sara Sligar (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Slow starter

By the end of the book I was ENGROSSED!!! It was just that getting there was a little bit of a challenge. It’s a very interesting story and didn’t end up where I thought it would. The voice actor who did the Miranda parts has the kind of voice that makes my ears tune out so I found myself having to rewind her parts a lot because I got distracted by something more interesting than that narrators drone.

interesting

I could really feel the characters. sometimes too much to where I had to take a break. but it was remarkable

Interesting story, pretty dark

I enjoyed this book but think I would’ve liked it more on paper due to the different narrators. They did a great job distinguishing them audibly but I personally follow along better with dates and what not when I can see it in front of me. Subject matter was a bit dark at times but offered interesting perspectives on mental illness.

A cast of the mentally ill

Every character in this drama has some form of mental illness. It became a bit monotonous. The character of Miranda was especially distasteful. I believe the author intended her to be sympathetic, but I just found her self-absorbed with her artistic obsessions. The lesson from this story....artists shouldn’t have children 😣

Disappointed

Predictable. Not one surprise or twist and ended exactly the way I expected from the start.

Exhaustingly straight with few surprises

This is hard to review as it was a well-crafted and well-written story that often felt like a slog to get through. The whole thing feels written by and for the young, straight, white women of the new york publishing scene. which is to say, I've heard it before and don't find the relationships it describes particularly interesting. while it may be a revelation (or at least relatable) to the aforementioned demographic that certain types of men will turn out to be abusers and certain types of secrecy will turn out to be toxic, to those of us for whom this is old news, it's just another tedious journey through the ways white women attempt to absorb or shield themselves with white male power, only to be thwarted by it.

Learn to pronounce the language correctly!

This is a good story — well-developed characters, interesting plot. But within the first pages the narrator says “archivist” with a long “I,” obviously assuming that the profession noun is pronounced the same way the place noun is. IT ISN’T!! It’s a short “I” and as an archivist, this drove me nuts!
These sort of mispronunciations can ruin a book for a listener! Please try to do better — this isn’t the first book I’ve returned for this same reason, and I doubt I’m the only person who feels this way.