The Humanity Project

By: Jean Thompson

Narrated by: Tanya Eby

Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Year We Left Home, a dazzling new novel already being hailed as an "instantly addictive...tale of yearning, paradox, and hope." (Booklist)

After surviving a shooting at her high school, Linnea is packed off to live with her estranged father, Art, who doesn’t quite understand how he has suddenly become responsible for raising a sullen adolescent girl. Art’s neighbor, Christie, is a nurse distracted by an eccentric patient, Mrs. Foster, who has given Christie the reins to her Humanity Project, a bizarre and well-endowed charity fund. Just as mysteriously, no one seems to know where Conner, the Fosters’ handyman, goes after work, but he has become the one person Linnea can confide in, perhaps because his own home life is a war zone: His father has suffered an injury and become addicted to painkillers. As these characters and many more hurtle toward their fates, the Humanity Project is born: Can you indeed pay someone to be good? At what price?

Thompson proves herself at the height of her powers in The Humanity Project, crafting emotionally suspenseful and thoroughly entertaining characters, in which we inevitably see ourselves. Set against the backdrop of current events and cultural calamity, it is at once a multifaceted ensemble drama and a deftly observant story of our 21st-century society.

©2013 Jean Thompson (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

The "Project" was not a success to me

What disappointed you about The Humanity Project?

Great set ups to tell stories, that never were completed.

What could Jean Thompson have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Complete a story - lots of trails that ended with a thud. For instance, why mention the similar metallic fabric coat more than once and then... nothing.

What about Tanya Eby’s performance did you like?

Nice variance on the different character voices.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Humanity Project?

Its hard to say, because I'm unsure about what the author was trying to convey. So many things seemed like they were going somewhere and were important to lay out the story... but not completion.

Any additional comments?

I don't understand why I read any good reviews on this book. Very disappointing.