by Emily St. John Mandel
Read by Dylan Moore
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Content: There is a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

This one is a bit hard to sum up, plot wise. We mostly follow Vincent, who grew up in a small town in British Columbia, on the ocean, and whose mom died in a freak accident when she was 13. She’s working as a bartender in the posh Hotel Caiette when she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, who ends up going to jail for running a Ponzi scheme. There are various sub-plots and diversions, but that’s the basic meat of it.

However, the joy in this book comes from the diversions. It doesn’t follow a linear timeline, jumping back and forth throughout the years, as we get to know Vincent and others. Mandel focuses on the effects of actions, and everything in the book is interconnected. There’s a bit of mystery, a bit of romance, a bit of commentary on class issues, and a bit of reflection of art. That sounds disjointed, but it never felt that way. Mandel knows how to bring a reader in and help them care about her characters.

Though, maybe it’s because I listened to the book. The narrator was fabulous, and she was able to pull me in and keep me interested even though the timeline wasn’t always the easiest to follow. I found myself caring about Vincent and her life, as well as a lot of the people who intersected with it, and I’m sure that’s almost entirely because of the way Moore told the story.

It’s not my favorite book of the year, but it was certainly an intriguing one.