Blue Flowers

A Novel

By: Carola Saavedra

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Lauren Ezzo

Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

"Ravishing...as if Saavedra were a modern-day Borges." (Luis Alberto Urrea, O: The Oprah Magazine)

A novel of dark obsession, missed connections, and violent love.

Marcos has just been through a divorce and moved into a new apartment. He feels alienated from his ex-wife, from his daughter, from society; everything feels flat and fake to him. He begins to receive letters at his new address from an anonymous troubled woman who signs off as "A." and who clearly believes she is writing to the former tenant, her ex-lover, in the aftermath of a violent heartbreak. Marcos falls under the spell of the manic, hypnotic missives, and for the first time in years, something moves him.

Blue Flowers alternates between the letters detailing the dissolution of A.'s relationship, and Marcos' growing fixation with this damaged person. The letters become a kind of exorcism as both A.'s epistolary affair and Marcos' personal life reach a crisis point. Possessed by A., he is driven to discover her true identity. Blue Flowers is a dark portrait of desire, undermining accepted truths about love and sex, violence and fear, men and women.

©2020 Carola Saavedra (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Ravishing...as if Saavedra were a modern-day Borges. Translated brilliantly from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn, Blue Flowers plays out in a musical dance between A’s letters and the slow immolation of Marcos’s world as he grows addicted to them. It’s a mystery, yes. It might be a ghost story. It is sexy, and often unsettling. By the end, you could be forgiven for chewing your fingernails, wondering whether it’s all a figment of Marcos’s imagination. Or not." (Luis Alberto Urrea, O: The Oprah Magazine)

"Saavedra’s writing, particularly in the raw and vulnerable epistles, feels relentless and evocative in Hahn’s translation and creates intensity inside this tale shaped by characters strongly preoccupied with words and meaning. Thematically layered and psychologically demanding, this is a book for readers willing to explore uneasy relationship dynamics." (Booklist)

"Captivating... In chapters alternating between letters and Marcos’s reactions, Saavedra steadily unveils the darkness permeating the lives of her protagonists, and in doing so creates a literary psychological thriller that questions what is real and what is imagined. This tale of desire and yearning is impossible to put down." (Publishers Weekly)

Not sure what to think

I was very interested in this book. Started off good. But then the ending was strange. Maybe I didn’t understand it? But I was waiting to find out who A was and didn’t.
PS. The male narrator is FANTASTIC . I’d listen to more books with him. The female was good but... I don’t know. She started to annoy me after a while.

Should have been a short story

Repetitive theme and while worthy, experienced as a never ending droning story seemingly without end. Sorry!

Insufferable

Overacted to the point of being intolerable to listen to. Cannot fully blame the actors, as both performances are so over the top -- in many cases, the female narrator reading the letters is SHOUTING at you for minutes on end -- that I have to imagine the fault lies with the VO director.

Performances aside, one of the most boring, pointless, repetitive, completely uninteresting stories I've had the displeasure of listening to. Not a single compelling section in a short-but-not-short-enough 5 hours, which likely would have been 3 hours if characters didn't repeat the most banal thoughts and observations over and over and over. This recording is a form of punishment.