Now and Again

By: Charlotte Rogan

Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Ade M'Cormack, Aaron Landon, Kiff VandenHeuvel, John Glouchevitch, Kathleen McInerney

Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

A provocative novel about the fallout from a search for truth by the author of the national best seller The Lifeboat.

For Maggie Rayburn - wife, mother, and secretary at a munitions plant - life is pleasant, predictable, and, she assumes, secure. When she finds proof of a high-level cover-up on her boss' desk, she impulsively takes it, an act that turns her world and her worldview upside down. Propelled by a desire to do good - and by a newfound taste for excitement - Maggie starts to see injustice everywhere. Soon her bottom drawer is filled with what she calls "evidence", her small town has turned against her, and she must decide how far she will go for the truth.

For Penn Sinclair - army captain, Ivy League graduate, and reluctant heir to his family's fortune - a hasty decision has disastrous results. Home from Iraq and eager to atone, he reunites with three survivors to expose the truth about the war. They launch a website that soon has people talking, but the more they expose, the cloudier their mission becomes.

Now and Again is a blazingly original novel about the interconnectedness of lives, the limits of knowledge, and the consequences of doing the right thing.

©2016 Charlotte Rogan (P)2016 Hachette Audio

Major Disappointment

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

One of the readers was covering some kind fo accent, which was just a bit distracting. And this book is just so poorly written.

What could Charlotte Rogan have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Character decision-making is unbelievable. Also, there is no dramatic culmination. The book feels like social justice grandstanding.

What aspect of the narrators’s performance would you have changed?

All of the voice actors were anywhere from fine to exceptional. All of the women were better than the men. And one of the male narrators was covering an accent (maybe British?) and it was a bit distracting.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Now and Again?

I am not sure that I would personally have even enjoyed this as a novella or short story. I picked it up because I loved her first novel. I picked it up without reading the premise, which was a mistake. This is not the sort of book I normally enjoy. I gave it a go anyway because of Lifeboat's impression upon me, but I just could not wait for this one to be over. Every character felt like a shallow stereotype. Nothing big happened at all.

Easily the dumbest...

... Book I have ever listened to. I cannot believe I wasted 14 hours waiting and hoping something would actually happen. Nothing ever did. A mess of nitwit characters whose next move in every situation is really judged. Do NOT under any circumstances but this book. Every single character is dead ended - left hanging in every situation... And then you say to yourself "so what? I have no empathy with any of the characters anyway!". Having so many narrators does not help the story line at all. All the characters are idiots - and having a different narrator for each character makes it feel some troup is going through their lines for a play. I am disgusted with myself that I really listened to the whole thing.