Audiobook1 hour
Thalia Book Club: The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster with Author Kaye Gibbons
Written by Kaye Gibbons
Narrated by Elissa Schappell and Andrea Marcovicci
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Kaye Gibbons joins Elissa Schappell to discuss The Life All Around Me, the sequel to her novel Ellen Foster. Andrea Marcovicci reads an excerpt.
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Reviews for Thalia Book Club
Rating: 3.2844036403669725 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
109 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Book on CD read by the author.
Nearly twenty years after the publication of Ellen Foster, Gibbons returns to her subject to catch us up on what’s happened in the life of this extraordinary character. Ellen is now fifteen and thriving. She’s exhausted the resources of her local school district, and is on an independent course of study. While she realizes it’s unusual, she has decided to apply for early admission to college, and may as well set her sights high. The novel opens with her letter to the President of Harvard University requesting special consideration of her accomplishments and suitability for matriculation.
I love Ellen Foster. The original novel packed an emotional wallop that is still with me some 18 years after I first read it. I admit I was concerned about whether Gibbons would be able to replicate that emotional connection in this sequel. Well, I still love Ellen. She’s resilient, vulnerable, both naïve and wise beyond her years, intelligent, loving and brave.
I also dearly love Kaye Gibbons. I’ve read just about everything she has written, some more than once. But I did not love this book; it didn’t quite meet expectations. Perhaps this is the fault of the audio experience. Gibbons reads her own novel and while I think her voice is a good one for Ellen, after a couple of tracks I grew really tired of her lack of inflection. There is no effort to differentiate the various characters and as a result the entire experience is lacking emotional depth. I did also look at the text version, but I’m not sure I would have rated this much higher if I had read it rather than listened. I suspect that Gibbons was purposely holding the reader at arm’s length because she believes that Ellen would do so. And perhaps she’s right. Whatever the cause, I was disappointed. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I found this book a bit disappointing. During the first half of the book, I had only a remote idea what in the world Ellen was going on about at least the time. The narrator was so herky-jerky and rambling that I wondered if I was missing something. There were some very funny bits of dialogue. The ending was too much of an improbable deus ex machina to fit, like that handkerchief and Oliver sort of thing. I didn'tlove it and I didn't hate it. An okay book to kill some time with,if I had time to kill.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ellen Foster reminds me of Scout Finch. Smart, no-nonsense girl in a world not worthy of such a mind. I never read the first Ellen Foster book, but that never seemed a problem; in fact, maybe it was better, because this book, for me then, had depth for Ellen's past that was expected (but not assumed) knowledge. It enriched the book, I felt.
It was difficult to listen to the narrative at first. I'm not sure if that's because it was the author reading it, and unlike an actor she didn't alter her voice enough when different people spoke, or the whole thing was meant to sound like a big run-on thought, but it certainly took concentration at the beginning to follow the story. Once I caught on, I admired the pithy conversations between Ellen and Laura.
Some people may criticize what is ultimately a 'happily-ever after' kind of story, but it was an enjoyable, feel-good read without being schmultzy (and I hate schmultz).