Three Words for Goodbye

A Novel

De: Hazel Gaynor, Heather Webb

Narrado por: Suzanne Toren, Ann Marie Gideon, Megan Tusing

Three Words for Goodbye has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

A SISTER’S JOURNEY

I listened to this book simply because it was written by Hazel Gaynor. I’ve always enjoyed her books (“The Girl Who Came Home” — I listened to that one three times back to back)! This book was decent, but it took me longer to get into it than the other Hazel Gaynor books I have listened to so far. I found that by speeding up the book up to 1.2 helped quite a bit — the speech felt more natural; at 1.0, it felt very slow draggy. The voices of the narrators didn’t do anything for me.

The book became more interesting for me once the sisters reached Europe, with three letters from their grandmother they were to deliver before their grandmother died. The letters were the grandmother’s way of fixing old hurts and to teach her granddaughters something important. I enjoyed the pictures painted by the author’s words describing each European city the sister’s visited — Paris, Venice and Vienna.

Throughout the book, I was afraid WWII was going to break out and the sisters would be trapped as they carried their grandmother’s message to loved ones in each city. There was a brief run-in with Nazis in Vienna, but war had not yet been declared and the sisters, while shaken, were not detained.

As the sisters traveled, I also enjoyed the descriptions of their modes of transportation — the Queen Mary, the Orient Express and the Hindenburg.

I didn’t enjoy the constant squabbling the sisters did in the first half of the book, but it served to point out how different they were in personality and eventually showed how the girls mirrored the personalities of their grandmother and her estranged sister. Along the way, the sisters reconnect with each other, with family members they didn’t know they had, and most importantly with themselves as individuals. They learned what it was in life that meant the most to them and the things that they no longer wanted holding them back from being the best version of themselves they could be.

I found the overall affect and language of the story to be old-fashioned, but I suppose it was necessary due to the time period.

This is a sweet, old-fashioned story of family and love; a cautionary tale of not losing precious time with those you love over things that really don’t matter. The story is about appreciating what we have when we have it, of treasuring our time with loved ones, and of not being afraid of opening your heart and sharing how you feel. The grandmother didn’t want her granddaughters later in life to have regrets about things unsaid, choices not made and the paths not taken, as she herself had. Although the story took place in the 1930’s the lessons still relevant today.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and am not sorry I spent a credit on it.

Inspiring tale of family ties and a wonderful trip to the past

I love all of Hazel Gaynor’s books! The stories are lovely and I always enjoy the tidbits of history that I also get with each book.

I enjoyed it

Not my favorite book by Hazel Gaynor and not my favorite narrators but I enjoyed the story.

A truly fictional historical book about siblings about families

I like this book very much because of the interaction between the generations of sisters individual needs and wants and happinesses surpassing the family yet in the end, it is about the family and for those that are privileged enough to have sisters or brothers. They need to know how treasured they should be.

Unforgettable story of grandmothers and granddaughters, and how their lives intertwine.

I enjoyed this book and the story so much because of the relationship between the sisters and the grandmother and her sister. I love how this book brought all of them together and change their lives forever. The narration was absolutely perfect. I found myself not wanting to do anything but listen to this book. Also experiencing Paris and Venice, the ship all their travels with them, the history, the art and the way it was described so perfectly. I felt like I was with them. Thank you for the book, the story and the narration. It is one of my favorites..