M. Morse

Easy listening for a stress break

Revisado: 12-12-23

3 stars = solid story, nothing outstanding, no major flaws. Just a good book for the end of a stressful semester about the collective power of women when we choose to come together. Its also about our own blindness to who we really are, and the ways we miss living into our need for community. That was my take away from the third act, when certain people begin finally showing up for one another.

I did not have this kind of childhood so the ease of this foursome’s friendship and loyaltiy felt unreal to me. The beginning was a bit slow in that regard as well. Something about it all did not ring true to me. Most relationships don’t work out this way. But in that way it is also aspirational about what we ought to be to one another - as girls, as women.

If you want something deep and mysterious, this is not that. But its a good staple for a holiday break. I enjoyed it overall.

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Honest effort but lacks self awareness

Revisado: 12-02-22

I'm a step child of an addict who died in our garage...so maybe I listened more for what he didn't say, because I know what this is like from the other side.

Before I get to the critique, I want to say up front that I appreciate his effort, especially his narration. He is clearly left disabled by the destruction of his addiction and the reviews mocking his performance are, in my opinion, in poor taste. Yes, he has lost that sharp and crisp articulation that once drove his sarcastic wit and timing. We live in a world that celebrates ablism and silences disability, so I appreciate the defiance in his unapologetic performance.

I also think his critique of our drug rehabilitation institutions is worthy of careful examination. I think he offers us a valuable insight as a client of so many crisis and rehab centers. It is alarming that so many seem to fall on the extremes of functioning either more like prisons or country clubs.

If you were to read the book in your own voice, you would assign more empathy to the sequences about the medical consequences of his addictions. But for me, there was something else in the snideness of his self deprecation that betrayed an overly bitter and victimized posture. As he read through relapse after relapse and near death experience, I heard a lot of cathartic honesty, but very little actual self reflection on the impact of his own choices. There's a difference between being honest about his failures as a companion, friend, lover, coworker, etc...and owning how toxic his presence was to those people. He longs for connection to others and I empathize with that...but reading between the lines, one can understand why people around him have had to put up boundaries with him, even before his addiction was alarming.

The book gets repetitive in this way, telling the same series of stories over and over from different angles, and that's where it begins to sound like an exercise in self pity. Not because of what happened, which I have empathy enough for, but how he's telling it. The book could have been half as long, if edited for clarity and concision.

Perry's story is indeed heartbreaking, but it is not the tragedy he thinks it is. And that's the disconnect for me. I pray Perry's fragile sobriety and fragile comforts hold out, because he won't survive the next curve ball. And reality is full of them.

He ends the book continuing to objectify people as props he wants to populate his life, just not in the same way he once did as a womanizer seeking sex from everyone...but as a man who still cannot connect to the reality that life doesn't hand anyone a comfortable gig. Just ask a mom of a disabled child...he would never survive that. I pray I'm wrong, but I just don't hear the recognition. I think it is worth the read, but I am not sure it delivers what Perry thinks, or hopes, it does. I wish him wellness, wholeness, and peace.

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We still need this book

Revisado: 04-27-22

"Justice was done."

As a whole, we remain locked at loggerheads over what that seemingly objective statement means or ought to mean. Thomas Hardy wrestles brilliantly with the assertion and by the end, leaves us longing for a more just world.

At times I heard myself cry out once or twice, helpless to stop what I knew was coming. we women usually know what's coming.

As a Christian, I readily recognized and applaud the efforts in this novel to parse through the barriers of religious dogma in order to illuminate the more tender truths. Sometimes the truth of God - of justice, mercy, and kindness - shows up best when characters portray such a lack of these. Especially when abuse of power - who has it, and who doesn't - is so opposite the image of a God who abdicated power in order to identify with the lowly and powerless.

I can wish for a different ending, a "better" one...but the story remains more coherent and consistent for the inevitable application of justice in a society bent towards correcting ills with one hand that they have generated with the other. Where the privileged are not held accountable for their mistakes but rather pass off the consequences of their behaviors to those who have no power to protect themselves from it. Father to child. Man to woman. In that sense, justice here truly is, tragically, blind.


Also enjoyed the excellent performance, tenderly and expertly read.

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better than the films

Revisado: 04-02-22

It's like this: Andy Serkis understands the assignment.

I hadn't read the books since the movies were released. Having collected the extended versions of each film, my recollection of the actual events as told in the books was feeling somewhat anemic. I had been wanting to return to the story for some time but had not considered audible.

On a whim, for a road trip, the family decided we should listen to a good book, and checked to see if LOTR was available. When we saw Andy Serkis was the narrator, it was a no brainer. But even as long time fans, we were astonished at the depth of his craft on display for this platform.

Serkis is at the top of his game. You will actually believe the narration is populated by multiple actors. He gives a performance so captivating, it is a superior installment to the films, IMHO. With this reading, the story remains intact in ways the film cannot rightly do, yet all the depth of character is deftly portrayed in this stunning performance.

I'm only now in the mines of Moria and am hooked for the rest of the audible series. We are so fortunate to have Andy's talents once again transport us to Middle Earth. I will gladly rejoin the Fellowship in my imagination once again thanks to this stellar reading.

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abuse, and the power of resilience

Revisado: 03-29-22

I tumbled into this story with no notion of what to expect, and glad I took the journey. For any good fiction to grab us, we need to either see ourselves in the main character, or wish we cout be them in some way. For me, Kya Clark accomplished both.

Not everyone knows the isolation of surviving abuse; the way it alters your identity and sense of yourself...the way it stains and separates you from the rest of "proper society." But if you do, you will see yourself in Kya.

Not everyone wants to admit or acknowledge that the small life they live and believe to be populated with good, honest, upright people is actually propped up on layers of systemic and social prejudice. Kya's journey ought to compel us to question those assumptions.


Kya's relationship to the marsh is one of identity and empathy, to the degree that both human and nature form a symbiotic and sustainable relationship. The only constant, supportive, protector and provider in Kya's life is the marsh. They are so interconnected, each mention of the various inhabitants of the marsh become a metaphor for Kya in some way.

The two lovers in her life represent the ways in which humans interact with our environment: the one treats her as an object to be studied, admired, explored, and ultimately loved. the other, an object to be used and taken from, willing - or not. It's hard to miss the metaphorical relationship each lover represents, and how that highlights Kya's role as representative of the marsh in these ways.

It is also a very human story, full of our capacity for pride, desire, cowardice, perseverance, and self-destruction. There is at once a demonstrable human need for community as well as the faults of a community grown too rigid in it's boundaries of who gets to be included.

There are times the pace lags a bit and some details are overly amplified while others brushed aside.

The performance was consistent and pleasant enough, though Kya's "voice" never seems to mature or change as she grows. I don't think it warrants some of the scathing negative reviews, but some of Kya's voice suffers a lack of depth.

Like all good fiction, the story is trying to ask some important questions of us. If you know the pain and isolation of abuse, you will understand the psychological journey Kya takes us on. And hopefully, in the end, find a way to acceptance and peace that is informed by our inherent worth and dignity... something Kya understands and demonstrates to us, in the end.

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