Shell Game

Getaway Collection

By: Rumaan Alam

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Length: 53 mins

Publisher's summary

2023 Audie Award Winner for Best Short Stories/Collection Audiobook

An extended family’s Cape Cod vacation reveals uncomfortable truths that threaten one man’s illusion of happiness in this incisive short story by the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.

Mark has a wife and two kids, a sense of purpose, financial security, and a fragile contentment. However wistful his visions of the future, Mark knows who he is. But a summer trip with his abrasive brother-in-law and unhappy sister-in-law leave Mark questioning everything he thinks he knows about his family—and himself.

Shell Game by Rumaan Alam is part of Getaway, a collection of six stories about dream escapes that take unimaginable, even sinister, turns. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single sitting.

©2022 Rumaan Alam. (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Did I miss something?

I feel like this was an epilogue or a something to wet your appetite for a main course. I don’t see how it can be stand along and completed.

maybe I missed the point

To be totally transparent, I was busy doing other things while listening to this one, but I couldn't get into the story. Overall, it sounded like a short recollection of a boring family vacation.

Felt pointless and weird

This story felt a little pointless. It also felt like it was trying to be smart but all that did was making everything confusing. The way the boys were described made me feel uncomfortable. The characters had no depth and the story literally went nowhere this was my least favorite book of the series.

Confused

Honestly couldn’t tell you what this was.
I’m glad this was part of kindle unlimited, not worth it.

confused

This was an odd story. My mind was thinking of all the directions the story could go as I was listening, but I felt as if there was no point to this story at all. How did this vacation make him rethink everything he thought he knew? A sudden attraction to a lifeguard? All this story do was leave me utterly baffled & confused. This was the only story of the GETAWAY series I didn't like

Waste of Time!!!

Shell Game by Rumaan Alam
28 pages Kindle story starts on 3
53m narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi
Getaway Collection #6

Genre: Short Stories

Featuring: Cape Cod, Twins, Family Vacation

Rating as a movie: R

My rating: ⭐️¾

My thoughts: There was no point to this story and no reason for its ending directionless plot. This is the weakest of the collection and the only one written by a man, that's not how you end a short story collection. It's not even literary fiction because the characters lacked depth.

Recommend to others?: No. This was a waste of a good setting.

It missed the mark

I enjoyed the book series, but didn’t understand how this book fit into the collection. Nor did I fully understand the storyline…

Family Dynamics

This story actually was interesting, seeing family
dynamics from a father/husband/brother-in-law's perspective. The ending is jarring though as we go from a normal family vacation to a stark and apparent sad scene in the future, I wish there was more and I would have listened much longer. The narrator did awesome, and I chuckled a couple times at his frankness. This wasn't a thriller or super suspenseful, just wondering when something big will happen (it doesn't), a single perspective into the human condition and family dynamics. It made me sad though how inconsequential it makes being a human going about their life seem.

Difficult to rate

I struggled at my feelings with rating this book. It was definitely nothing remarkable, likely one I will forget in the not too far future other than the title I found extremely appropriate, but yet- it certainly had me focused on the characters, their lives, the events, and making comparisons to real life.

It was this last part, how this book could have been the typical life of any neighbor's life story, that is what intrigued me most. It's fascinating how we go through our daily routine and without ever really knowing the people neighbors, relatives, often those that live with us, and even there are times we don't fully know our own self.

This book brings all this out in a strange family dynamic that could exist in any family.

Best description is thought provoking.

Not worth the time

This was horrible. No real storyline. Seemed to be about some guy fixated on sex. I wish I had that hour plus of my listening time back.