You Have Arrived at Your Destination

By: Amor Towles

Narrated by: David Harbour

Length: 1 hr and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

Audible narration by David Harbour (Stranger Things)

Nature or nurture? Neither. Discover a bold new way to raise a child in this unsettling story of the near future by the New York Times bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow.

When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

Amor Towles’s You Have Arrived at Your Destination is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

©2019 Cetology, Inc. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic Reviews

"...[David] Harbour’s lively narration makes for a performance that's difficult to stop listening to. The short length works well, and characters crackle with life as Harbour's gruff cadence and occasional spot of humor keep the story engaging. The work will stick with listeners, thanks to its compelling narration and intriguing 'what-if' elements." (AudioFile magazine)

"...a sensational project...." (Spine Magazine)

"This is exactly how I like my techno-anxiety.... Happy bingeing!" (Audible, an October Editors Pick)

4.01 stars

This is the first story I've listened to from this series. I'm a fan of this author and will listen to anything he writes, which led me to this story story that ended up being really good. I may give a few of the others a try after listening to this one. If your a fan of Towles' work, I'm sure you will like this. I'm usually not all that much of a fan of short stories. I prefer longer works that go more in depth. That being said: this is one of the better short works I've heard or read.

Overall rating: 4.01 stars

3 people found this helpful

A little disappointing

2.75 out of 5 stars

The start of this one was interesting. I honestly had no idea what I was getting into. I’ve been trying to read books without fully fleshing out the synopsis. This one, since I was already interested in the other books in this series – I go into without even reading about it. Judging from the title I thought it was going to be something about self driving cars or something like that. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

It’s hard to describe a book that’s shorter like this one in the “typical” fashion but the beginning of this (when we first find out about the technology) is fascinating. Even for being a short story – Towles is still slow playing the build up a bit and I respected that. Not reading the synopsis just lead to further suspense as I tried to figure out this new technologies fatal flaw.

The first 50% or so of this book I felt like I knew where it was going. The second 50% felt like it was almost another book. It obviously fits into the story but the beginning and end were so different I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it. I don’t expect to leave a story “satisfied” and I feel dirty even typing that, but this book left me with as many questions as it did answers.

Towels writing style made the story fly by along with the narration by David Harbour – but the ending (or lack thereof) kind of flopped this one a bit for me. You Have Arrived At Your Destination was one of the rare cases (in my eyes) where I think a longer story would have done it justice. I feel like the length of this one held it back a bit. It was almost like Towles was trying to be clever and end it on a complete surprise.

2 people found this helpful

Excellent

Wow, I really enjoyed this intriguing short story and LOVED the narration. My only reservation (hence the 4 stars instead of 5) was the way the story kind of diverged off at the finale. It felt like the author didn't quite know how to wrap it up. But overall, a great story. Amor Towles is a wonderful writer.

2 people found this helpful

Enjoyable hour

Quick listen, enjoyed the story. The story is interesting in that it leads to a lot of introspection.

1 person found this helpful

You Have Arrived at your Destination

The first few chapters started off very slow. The story was hard to follow at first. Then toward the last three chapters it became interesting.

Great

What a great novella, really makes one think in what is it that makes people happy. Really well played out timeline for such a short book.

Best narrator I've ever heard

The story itself is a little underwhelming but the narrator has the best story telling voice there is! I would listen to anything by this guy!

What ending?

Don’t really know what to say about this one. Started off promising? Narration was good.

Great story and amazing performance!

The combination of Towles' deep, dense and rich story and characters with Harbour's dynamic but subtle performance is fantastic!

energizing and thought provoking

First, I certainly hope this is just the first of many David Harbour narrations. I found his cadences true to life, adding a depth and reality to the story that I found refreshing.

As other reviews noted, this story changes quickly and ends abruptly. I believe this is intentional, the structure reinforcing the authors theme. It leaves a bunch of open questions, the good kind I think, that will sit in my hindbrain a while before opening up a new perspective on the world.

Well, that was depressing

An interesting thought experiment, but ultimately painting a bleak picture of a possible (probable?) future. The writing was good. The narration the best part, but slightly monotone.