The Other Story

By: Tatiana de Rosnay

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Vacationing at a luxurious Tuscan island resort, Nicolas Duhamel is hopeful that the ghosts of his past have finally been put to rest.… He's now a best-selling author, but when he was 24 years old, he stumbled upon a troubling secret about his family - a secret that was carefully concealed. In shock, Nicholas embarked on a journey to uncover the truth that took him from the Basque coast to St. Petersburg - but the answers wouldn’t come easily.

In the process of digging into his past, something else happened. Nicolas began writing a novel that was met with phenomenal success, skyrocketing him to literary fame whether he was ready for it or not - and convincing him that he had put his family’s history firmly behind him. But now, years later, Nicolas must reexamine everything he thought he knew, as he learns that, however deeply buried, the secrets of the past always find a way out.

Layered and beautifully written, Tatiana de Rosnay's The Other Story is a reflection on identity, the process of being a writer, and the repercussions of generations-old decisions as they echo into the present and shape the future.

©2014 Éditions Héloise d’Ormesson, Paris (P)2014 Macmillan Audio

Boring book

Would you try another book from Tatiana de Rosnay and/or Simon Vance?

I loved Sarah's Key and cried reading it so I was looking forward to her next book. This book is a disappointment. It is the very boring story of a pompous writer with writer's block. I stopped reading it halfway through b/c life is too short to read boring books.

Not my cuppa

I have loved all of Tatiana's other books but this one just didn't do it for me. It had a lot of very descriptive sexting scenes that took me right out of the book and even Simon Vance's narration couldn't get me back in.

This book was about an author, Nicholas, I did have to kind of giggle, the title of the book in the book was called ‘The Envelope’ and the author Nicholas who turned into a jerk after his first book is a hit and made into movie. Ummm Nicholas? The Envelope? Or was it The Notebook? Heehee, not sure but that is where my mind went.

I kept listening hoping this book would get better and that the sexting storyline wouldn’t last the entire book but that turned out to be the majority of the story, bordering on erotica (at least in my mind). I guess it was to show what an ass Nicholas was but it could have been a short couple pages and not taken over the entire story. My problem with this was by the time we do get a few passages about Nicholas and the family secret I didn’t really care, Nicholas is a pig, and I didn’t care where he came from or what his family secret was.

Simon’s narration was well done as always but I felt like I didn’t know how old Nicholas was supposed to be because he sounded like an old man, but Vance does some great accents German, Russian, French, American. But it was almost embarrassing to me listening to these sexting scenes, at least when you are reading in print you can skip these but when listening that isn’t a choice. Honestly though this was such a huge part of the story I don’t know how much book would be left if I skipped all those scenes.

I will read Tatiana’s next book but hope she gets back to her true storytelling gift that have made me a fan!

2 stars

Won't be finishing this one

We meet the main character, author Nicholas Kolt, as he is spending three days at an exclusive Italian resort with his high-maintenance girlfriend. Although Nick has only written one book, it was a best-seller, selling, we are told, 30 million copies worldwide, and was the basis for a movie starring Robin Wright. Unfortunately, while Nick enjoys the food, sun and champagne, we are treated to his excruciatingly whiney inner dialogue regarding his inability to stay away from Twitter, Facebook, mirrors and sexting long enough to write his next book, for which he has accepted a healthy advance. Halfway through this book I don't know what the secret promised in the blurb is, nor do I care. No secret could be worth having to listen to this self-pitying jerk for another four and a half hours.

Cliché and disappointing

Could this really be the same author who penned Sarah's Key? This novel read like a trashy and vapid tabloid novella.

Awesome!

The storyline of this book is fascinating and the narration is fantastic! Highly recommend it.