Torch

De: Cheryl Strayed

Narrado por: Cheryl Strayed

The debut novel from the internationally acclaimed author of Wild weaves a searing and luminous tale of a family's grief after unexpected loss. • "A deeply honest novel of life after catastrophe, of intimacy lost and found." —O, The Oprah Magazine

"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilta life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart. Strayed's intimate portraits of these fully human characters in a time of crisis show the varying truths of grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A heartbreaking anatomy of one family's grief. . . . Beautifully written and authentic."
—People

"I loved the honesty of this novel, the way it looked at every aspect of loss and recovery--the pain, the joy, the absurdity, the anger, the despair, the hope and the great beauty--without ever holding back." —Elizabeth Berg

"Exquisite, powerful. . . . Strayed's Torch is an amazing feat. . . . This is autobiographical fiction at its best."
—Portland Tribune

"A deeply honest novel of life after catastrophe, of intimacy lost and found."
—O, The Oprah Magazine

"Torch is a steady stream of finely wrought portrayals of nuance, moments and emotions. . . . Lovely turns of phrase are coupled with subtle and keen observations and truisms that remind a reader why she reads."
—Newsday

"Strayed proves a master of the little and the big. . . . There is throughout the novel a perfectly tuned ear. Combined with her empathic skills, she has transformed these familiar themes into an irresistibly engaging debut read."
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

"This novelist goes fearlessly into this place of raw grief and inappropriate lust and desperate love and simply reports what she sees: These are people who . . . live dense, perplexing, fascinating and authentic lives."
—Washington Post Book World

"[Strayed] astounds—producing a literary balm for those who know what it means to lose a parent. Coming on the heels of Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, Torch echoes a similar theme: loss of a loved one will usher chaos into your life; it will shake you to your core; on its worst day, grief will make you absolutely crazy."
—The Oregonian

"Strayed...has a light hand, delivering emotional scenes with a journalistic eye, picking out the important details without resorting to purple prose. . . . Very moving."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"It's a beautiful book, expansive in its treatment of tragedy and grief, but equally attentive to all of the most telling details. The language is lovely, offering delicious, compelling imagery without being heavy-handed."
—Providence Journal

"Strayed knows how to balance the heartache with humor, and the spiritual with the mundane, to create characters you begin to know like friends."
—Pages Magazine

"Strayed addresses this universal theme with skill and unflinching compassion by creating exceptionally believable characters. . . . The details are precise, understated and devastating. . . . The metaphors are original and rich. . . . In short, this is a very moving and accomplished novel."
—Bookreporter.com

Great book

Touches on all the emotions of losing somebody close to you. It's a great story and great character development. I really enjoyed it!

The most precious reading of her own work

Cheryl Strayed’s creative and meticulously phrased moments build into the story a family and town processing the unexpected loss of a mother. It’s a touching and gentle story worth hearing Cheryl read in Audible.

Meh. The characters just weren't likable

Be incredible? Really? I wish ALL the characters of this book would have taken that advice. The first part of the story is good. Meeting Teresa, the mom who has cancer is great. The characters around her and her relationships are great. But I lost interest during the rest of the 3/4 of the book.
If you are like me, you are interested in this book because you loved Wild. Strayed's style is in here. It's in here in the shocking, raw things that the characters do because they are flawed and because of their grief. I liked those moments. Where this book failed though was redeeming those characters and making them likable. In Wild, Cheryl obviously is super likable and does things and shares things that made me like her including and because of her flaws--I liked her because of her complete-ness.
The characters in Torch were selfish and narcissistic and shallow and single faceted in their flawed-ness. I had no reason to cheer for them, they were just kind of lame.
The end of the story was the worst part. It just fizzled as the characters continued to have things happen to them and as they just stumbled through their mediocrity.

I also did not like Cheryl as the narrator. She had an annoying lilt in the way she finished each sentence that got tedious.

I hope Strayed writes more books. Fiction or non-fiction, I'll read (listen to) it, because I like her style and I think she'll only grow as a writer.

I don't recommend this book.

Great! Exactly what I expect if Cheryl Strayed

After reading Wild, Cheryl did not disappoint me when I backtracked to Torch. Great story and very true to who she is as an author and person. The book itself felt intimate.

Beautiful story

Exquisite writing and you really feel with how the characters are feeling. Having lost my father to cancer this year, I could relate to Joshua and Claire. Cheryl strayed did an amazing job of putting into writing what can only be felt.
The story is a lot of missed connections, and you wonder why they feel like they can't share their feelings with one another. They are pretty alone in their grief. It's irritating to see what the characters cannot, and they don't really resolve any of their internal issues, they just stuff them down and move on. That was why I didn't give the story 5 stars. It doesn't have to have a happy ending, but I would have liked to have left with some wisdom. It was them I did leave with was my own inspiration to be more in touch with my feelings and not treat people the way that this family treated each other. So I guess that is something.
The reason I gave the performance three stars is because it is narrated with an upward inflection. I would get distracted because I would wait and braced myself to see if there would be another one. But the narrator did a good job with the voices, changing her voice in subtle ways.