Beautiful.

The narrator is simply brilliant. The novel makes you think about so many things. Heartbreaking, joyful and funny at the same time. Very philosophical, but playfully. I loved it!

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Deep and meaningful

The story is excellent and has so much meaning behind it. It talks about relationships with objects through the story.
The narration when performing voices was irritating. Why do they have to shout and the accents and voices mix up at times. I only persevered because of the story. And listened to it at speed.

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Wonderful and full of wonder

An extraordinary book, exploring mental ill health, cultural pressures, modern and sustainable living and a wealth of amazing characters. Just give yourself up to this and let it move you along. The book knows where it’s going. Enjoy the ride.

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Very mixed feeling about this one

Overall, I think I really enjoyed the story but I don't quite know. Bits of it I found really heavy going. I think I might have done better if I had read it myself instead of listening.
I didn't like the narration. Some of the voices were heavily accented - overly so, in my view. But the thing that stuck in my throat was how the narrator made Annabel (the mother) sound like a complete moron. It spoilt the story for me. Somewhere towards the end, the narrator seemed to find a little empathy for her and toned down the airhead voice.

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The voicing of the mother was too annoying to continue

I’ve had to stop listening at the beginning of Part 2 as I found the characterisation (infantilisation) of the mother extremely annoying. It made me worry I was getting a totally skewed impression of the book, so I’m going to read it instead. Waste of a credit.

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1 person found this helpful

A little slow

There is lots of good stuff in this book. The depiction of hearing voices, of humanity in unexpected places, of the slow spiralling of a life out of control. The sections of the Tidy Magic book read by Ruth Ozeki, and the exploration of our relationship with stuff (including the contrast between Japan and America) are gentle and lyrical. But the pace is very slow, the scenery repetitive, some of the characterisation not entirely believable (Alice) and as much of the subject matter is quite dark, it felt like a very long haul. I also did not entirely enjoy the narration - whilst technically good, I felt that the voices used for Annabel, Dr M and Benny were unsympathetic, making the story more dismal than needed. I absolutely loved Ruth Ozeki's A Tale For The Time Being and was looking forward to this - it doesn't remotely reach the class of the former. Perhaps if half the length and more simply read, I'd have rated it higher - it IS good, just hard work.

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Just my kind of book

I’ve only listened to a few hours so far but I already know I love this book. It’s my kind of thing completely. Not the story (although that is really good) but the writing. I can’t say why, it’s just something. When I start a book like this one I think ‘ah thank goodness’
I’m quite fussy, many books and narrators I can’t stand, I have to stop listening, they bore annoy and irritate but this is the opposite. For me it’s the novel equivalent of all the beautiful, comforting, soothing and interesting things in life! The narrator does a great job in my view.

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Incredible

What an incredible book! I never wanted it to end. In fact I was tempted to listen to the whole thing again! This is written so beautifully and I’m glad comments on the narration didn’t put me off as I actually thought it was brilliantly narrated and I’m really fussy about narration! I adored this book.

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Wasted potential poor narration

I’m very sensitive to noise and the constant change of voices was very jarring. The female characters sound like a joke and that horrible gruff angry voice in Benny’s head is horrible. I like to listen to a book as I go to sleep and that horrible voice makes it so hard to stay immersed. I LOVE the story, it’s very magic- surrealist, just a shame the narrator got in my nerves. This is the issue with most audiobooks

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Read it

Complex and involving. I loved it.

That’s it. That’s my review Audible. No more words.

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