Because I Was Lonely

By: Hayley Mitchell

Narrated by: Helen Johns

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

Meet Rachel. She is caught in a spiral of endless crying, dirty nappies, and sleepless nights. She fears for her sanity - and the safety of her children. She's lonely.

Meet Adam. Suffering from the pain and trauma of a terrible accident that he blames himself for, he stays at home, unable to bring himself to leave the house. He's lonely.

So when Rachel and Adam rekindle their long lost friendship online, what starts as a little harmless flirtation soon becomes an unhealthy obsession, and slowly the threads of their lives unravel before them.

Four lonely people. Two unhappy marriages. One dangerous but inevitable climax.

©2017 Hayley Mitchell (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

Plausible and Chilling Readt

When you have kids, people warn "everything's gonna change" and "say goodbye to sleeping." These phrases and other clichés tempt one to think "because 'we're pregnant, we're both in this together. It'll be different for us."

Rachel opens the story as an exhausted, sleep-deprived mother of two. She yearns for the spirited, child-free days of youth. She wants to go back; back to when she and her husband, Adam were full of vigor and a voracious sexual desire.

In the wake of an horrific accident, Adam works from home. He works better this way. He's able to cope with left-over traumatic thoughts and feelings working solo. His home office is a perfect metaphor for his marriage: disconnected.

The author reels you in quickly, as she writes spot-on sentient details that transport you from your reality to hers. You picture the ubiquitous laundry piles and gag at the fetid, dirty diapers. She gives you the repetitive timestamp of illicit text messages.

You feel, see and cringe as you listen. The author makes this story real. So real, you can imagine it happening to someone you know.

As the couple's feelings, time and touch disintegrate, so does any semblance of their marriage.

The story escalates when Rachel engages in casual chatter with a man from her past. It's platonic, so what's the problem?  It's not like she sent the "Friend Request."

In tandem, Adam branches out his social network. He knows it's good to step away from work. Besides, tonight's dinner is "something Rachel made on toast." --AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

Too miserable for me

I appreciate that a story about a woman with post-natal depression, her long-suffering husband and her old chum suffering from overwhelming guilt, is not going to be a barrel of laughs. I did however expect to feel a level of sympathy for the characters but unfortunately it never came. The main problem for me was that the first chapter meandered around the past and the present and the narrator did not employ any pauses so I could not pick up that the story was now in different time zone. As a result the overall effect was a turgid stream of consciousness which was frankly quite boring. I did stick with this until chapter three but without any discernible improvement, I gave up and will return this.

7 people found this helpful

Only managed one hour!

The quality of the writing is good, as is the narration. However, after listening for one hour, I had to admit defeat. I’m not a ‘chic lit’ person and enjoy some dark crime novels, but this book (at least in the early stages) is frankly depressing. It may move on past the internal struggles of the mother with obvious post natal depression and the poor neglected baby, but, sadly, it didn’t do so soon enough for me.

2 people found this helpful

Odd but compulsive

I had to keep listening but very odd story. The individual stories were good of the two families. Very raunchy scenes with the two main characters.

1 person found this helpful