What would have made A Certain Age better?
Anything. I LOVE Ms. Williams, but I am unsure where this book came from. It is far from her normal work and honestly I can't even believe she wrote it. Her other books are filled with smart whit, can be laugh out loud funny and sad all at the same time, and her signature shock and awe the whole way through leading up to a great end, is what I love most about her. This book was none of that. Super anticlimactic, boring and the girl's voice who read for Sophie was TERRIBLE!
Would you ever listen to anything by Beatriz Williams again?
I hope to if she gets back into her rhythm.
What didn’t you like about the narrators’s performance?
The woman who read Tereasa was fine, and same with the newspaper woman, but Sophie's narrator tried to be Daisy-esque (from Gatsby) I am guessing and it did not work out well. Her blasé tone made it to where you couldn't detect any emotion in her words. This in turn, evoked no emotion for me and made me extremely bored and unable to get interested in the novel.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
I like the Liane Moriarty "Big Little Lies" type-feel of the ongoing investigation starting the book off and then consisting throughout the book, but unlike Moriarty, Williams did not pull off the anticipation or excitement. The idea needed to be more thought out instead it seemed sloppy.
Any additional comments?
Let me again say I am a HUGE fan of the Schuyler sisters books, and A Hundred Summers. I did not like The Forgotten Room at all. I will try Ms. Williams one more time, before I completely give up on her.