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Narrated by Andi Arndt
Lynn Steger StrongUnabridged — 7 hours, 26 minutes
Narrated by Andi Arndt
Lynn Steger StrongUnabridged — 7 hours, 26 minutes
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Ms. Strong has a highly sensitive awareness of the special kind of disappointment—and the painfully undying connection—that comes with family. There's mercifully little armchair psychology about Ellie and no blatantly obvious reason that she should be so damaged or careless. She just is, and in that way feels authentic.
"Ms. Strong has a highly sensitive awareness of the special kind of disappointment—and the painfully undying connection—that comes with family. There’s mercifully little armchair psychology about Ellie and no blatantly obvious reason that she should be so damaged or careless. She just is, and in that way feels authentic."
"Who do we blame when a good kid makes one disastrous mistake? The parents? The child? The bad influences lingering at the margins? Lynn Strong’s captivating novel explores questions of blame and guilt from many points of view, all of them rendered with tenderness, compassion, and surprising humor. A little bit Lionel Shriver, a little bit Virginia Woolf. Hold Still is a terrific debut."
"Lynn Steger Strong has a great eye for the visible world, a near perfect sensor for those of us living in it, and a deep compassion and curiosity for how we go astray and find ourselves again."
"In this compelling debut, Lynn Steger Strong paints a portrait of familial love that is real, visceral, and all the more dangerous for being unconditional. Her characters show us that loving someone deeply can be a fraught act—and trying to gain distance from them, even more so."
"Lynn Strong is clearly a spy. The espionage-level attention paid to the most seemingly invisible things and words and gestures that comprise the world, well, I feel like Strong broke a code that nobody else has broken. She allows us to better understand what we often see but fail to fully comprehend. Also this novel is really heartbreaking. And I loved these characters. ‘Strong debut’ has a whole new meaning after Hold Still. Keep an eye on Strong, that’s my advice. And not because she’s likely watching you. Because she is a writer worth watching."
"A tragedy lurks at the heart of Lynn Steger Strong’s achingly sad, achingly beautiful debut novel. How do you forgive your child after she does the unthinkable? How can you not? Hold Still quietly builds to a perfect crescendo, an ending that is both surprising and true."
"Strong has produced a family saga both familiar and strange, told in kaleidoscopic detail, dancing back and forth in time, balletically slow yet always knife tight, philosophical, interrogative and smart. I read with my heart in my throat."
"[An] assured, illuminating examination of the complex ties between mothers and daughters."
"Haunting…Strong’s characters are achingly detailed, and undeniably real."
What keeps the pages turning is the desperate, botched attempts at familial love between family members, none of whom seem to know quite what they want, bringing to mind the Tolstoy quote, ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Here, the mercurial rendering of this particular unhappy family makes it a heart-wrenching read in its very own way.”
★ 07/01/2016
In a last-chance effort to help her drug-abusing daughter Ellie begin a new life, introverted English professor Maya Taylor forces Ellie to leave her beloved New York and move to Florida to help a friend with a challenging child. Bad judgment and poor, often nonexistent communication culminate in a fateful event that threatens to tear everyone apart. Maya searches her past and her soul to determine whether she can live with what her daughter has done. Delving into the meaning and degrees of intimacy, "not-rightness," the perpetuation of self-loathing, and legacies of parents to their children, this work moves seamlessly through the present and several pasts to speak to the effects of drug use, promiscuity, and destructive behaviors upon everyone in a family. Reader Andi Arndt's perfect dreamlike tones are so smooth and her transitions so fluid that it could be challenging to keep track of where the listener is and from whose viewpoint a scene is being told. VERDICT Filled with longing and regret, this audiobook offers a slowly unfolding plot, multilayered characters, and nontraditional storytelling. A primary purchase for most libraries.—Lisa Youngblood, Harker Heights P.L., TX
2015-12-23
Strong's debut novel traces a mother-daughter bond that must be rebuilt after a life-changing tragedy. College professors Stephen and Maya Taylor have made a lovely life for themselves, commuting from tree-lined Brooklyn to teach philosophy and English at Columbia University. As their children, Ellie and Ben, grow closer to adulthood, the family seems to hang by a thread. After years of Ellie using drugs, making mistakes, and sleeping with the wrong boys, Maya ships her away to Florida to care for an old friend's child. Maya, an unmothered mother who coped with the pressures of parenting by reading, locking herself in her office, and running the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan for what seems like "half the day," no longer sleeps with her husband. Stephen's patience is tried by Ben's announcement that he's giving up his soccer scholarship and taking a break from college. The novel alternates between Ellie in 2011 and Maya in 2013, a before-and-after exploration of what tragedy and mistakes can do to families and friendships. Ellie's bad habits follow her to Florida and result in irrevocable loss. The accident, which is not elaborated on until the final pages, seems anticlimactic after being alluded to throughout the novel. Though Ellie's mistake is the lynchpin of the book, most of the story unpacks Maya's life—her absent mother, her emotionally unstable father, her career, her marriage, her closest friendship, and a web of relationships with graduate students. Ellie's brief but sweet relationship with her mother's friend and former student Annie is warmly drawn but leaves readers wishing Ellie was the subject of the same deep character analysis Maya received. A family drama that illustrates trauma's reverberations beyond those directly involved.
| BN ID: | 2940175487696 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dreamscape Media |
| Publication date: | 03/28/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
