The Day I Died

A Novel

By: Lori Rader-Day

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the award-winning author of Little Pretty Things comes this gripping, unforgettable tale of a mother's desperate search for a lost boy.

Anna Winger can know people better than they know themselves with only a glance - at their handwriting. Hired out by companies wanting to land trustworthy employees and by the lovelorn hoping to find happiness, Anna likes to keep the real-life messes of other people at arm's length and on paper. But when she is called to use her expertise on a note left behind at a murder scene in the small town she and her son have recently moved to, the crime gets under Anna's skin and rips open her narrow life for all to see. To save her son - and herself - once and for all, Anna will face her every fear, her every mistake, and the past she thought she'd rewritten.

©2017 Lori Rader-Day (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"[Narrator Hillary] Huber captures the personalities of the diverse characters, who are full of grit and determination, especially the women.... Huber's smoky voice is perfect for this carefully unfolding psychological thriller." ( AudioFile)

It's ok, but this aspect really bothered me...

Sorry, but I have to give spoilers to make my point about what bothered me: The story does a great job of setting up a woman in an abusive situation and how she escaped it. But, the end does a real disservice to the character (and the reader) when at the end, the author makes the point that when she hid in terror for all those years, it was unnecessary after all because her abuse had miraculously changed in the interim and, oh by the way, he is a great guy now, after all. The author implies that she had overreacted, had made a mistake by doing it and needed to struggle to correct it. I am here to call BS on ALL OF THAT.
This does a great disservice to women in abusive relationships everywhere. Abusers do not try to kill someone, then up and turn over a new leaf and become upstanding citizens. It just does not happen. It makes liars out of women who have lived through the reality of this situation. Shame on this author for ending by making it sound like her lead character is a dummy for having taken steps to save herself and her child from an abusive monster.
The one redeeming thing: this book is in the fiction section. It is definitely a fiction.

As far as the narrator, her voice got on my nerves at first, but I got into it eventually. Decent job.

Amazing Book

Where does The Day I Died rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is the only novel I have listened to on Audible, but I have read (a physical copy) a few books like this (mystery horror genre with a female lead), and it ranks very well among them. It is beautifully written, insightful, nuanced, and critically and politically insightful while still be narrative, plot, and character driven. Excellent book.

What did you like best about this story?

The story was interesting but not overly dramatic; it was believable, real, but always captivating.

What about Hillary Huber’s performance did you like?

Excellent narrator. Best Narrative I have heard thus far. She completely captures the character and brings the story to life. Amazing.

Best Rader Day Novel Yet!

I was hooked from the first page. Lori Rader Day has a way of keeping you engaged and not able to guess the ending. I guessed bits but didn't see most of it. That says a lot because I can almost always guess an ending.

The way Rader Day describes the protagonist's surroundings is so easy and fluid. I usually skip through the setting/scenery parts of a book because they are so monotonous. Not so with Ms. Rader Day. Her scene setting is so natural that I enjoy learning more.

Lori's books are relatively clean. Enough sex and language to keep it real and interesting but not so much that I couldn't read the book aloud to my mom. I feel comfortable letting my teenager read her books.

My biggest problem with this book is that it ended and I have to wait another year for Lori Rader Day's next novel.

Enjoyable , slow start

Good story, but took a long time to get to the meat of the story. Woman protagonist was not a damn Soul waiting to be rescued.

Deserves all the acclaim it’s received!

I really couldn’t stop listening to this book. I took walks I hadn’t planned to just to keep listening. Rader-Day’s protagonist (and first person narrator) is intelligent, strong and yet vulnerable in all the right ways. The plot is engrossing and tense. You won’t be disappointed.

Kept Falling asleep

This book's story was not engaging. None the characters felt genuine and the story was all over the place. Even though the subject matter should have had me enthralled, I nearly didn't finish it. Meh. Not worth the time or credit for me.

Not as good as I hoped.

The book was Hard to get into and stick with. The narrator was not too bad, but not good enough to keep my interest.