Beautiful Ruins

By: Jess Walter

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Fiction and Best Solo Narration, 2013

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning 50 years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist, and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion - along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

©2012 Jess Walter (P)2012 HarperCollins Publisher

Disappointed

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. There wasn't a redeeming value to this story. Character development was weak.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Kitchen House

Could you see Beautiful Ruins being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Not really. I'm not familiar with modern actors and actresses so have no clue who would play the parts.

Great narration and top notch story.

I don't know what I expected when I purchased this book based on the reviews but it was great. I immediately turned to my wife and said you need to read this book.

Love/hate relationship with this book

Any additional comments?

Some of the story lines were really good and I was interested to see how all of the characters and stories fit together. But it just kept going on and on and on and I just wanted it to be over. Especially the end, with all of the detail about every minor character and how his or her life turned out. I rarely say it, but I'm glad this book is over, which is a shame because there really are some good parts.

I Will Not Be Happy Until Everyone I Know Reads This Book!

This book made me laugh out loud, made me cry, made me care about each and every character. So beautifully written and amazingly narrated. I have become obsessed with convincing my book-loving friends to read it! And I would have never found this book if Audible hadn't recommended it to me. Thank you Audible!

pleasant story

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

easy enough to listen to, but found the storyline a little erratic in regards to the timeline

Would you be willing to try another book from Jess Walter? Why or why not?

would try another

What three words best describe Edoardo Ballerini’s voice?

appropriate, well modulated

Did Beautiful Ruins inspire you to do anything?

certainly would like to visit that coastline

depressing

Depressing story told in monotone. well-developed characters and well-crafted story that turns out OK but thought I'd never get finish it. wore me out listening to it. definitely need something light and uplifting next.

Wonderful story, very enjoyable!

I liked everything about this one -- the characters, the story, the references to famous people that I knew of, and the narration. I would definitely recommend it if you like a good story!

Totally entertaining

Would you listen to Beautiful Ruins again? Why?

This is a great book and listening to it was a real treat. I would recommend the book but particularly the audio. It is so enjoyable.

Which scene was your favorite?

My favorite scenes where in 1962 in Italy. It was great to have the events around the filming of Cleopatra.

Amazing

It was one of those amazing stories you don't want to end. I never knew what was going to happen next. It always went somewhere I didn't expect. I loved listening to it. The narration was incredible. It was just one of those books I am so happy I didn't miss.

Quite enjoyable

A lovely story with interesting characters. The only negative was the amount of jumping around with multiple story threads. To me, this makes it difficult to invest in characters. Because of this, it took awhile to get going and into it.

The final chapter was a bit heavy handed, but wonderful and beautiful. You did kinda have to rack your brain to remember who was who and the audio version of the book made the delineation of some stories cloudy, but not to the point of anything overly negative.

The narrator was very good, with a few pronunciation issues, but overall was fantastic.

I do recommend. Especially great vacation book.