A. Matheny

What Hillbilly Elegy should have been

Revisado: 01-03-25

This book really gets at what it is like to be from the mountains. I grew up in Knoxville, so I was more or less a city boy, but I spent as much time as I could in the mountains and got to know lots of people from the areas covered in this story. The patois used in the telling of it is spot-on. The consciousness of the world created here reveals without condescending and without being self-serving. The telling is painful but sobering, in every sense of that word. The good and bad characters are beautifully nuanced, and I was just so impressed with the hard-scrabble dignity that shows through the superficial mess of the lives lived here. There is a lot of politics and sociology and psychology involved here, and lessons to be learned and prejudices to be left behind. It was a long and meaningful reconciliation for me to hear someone who talks like me tell such a tremendous story. Hearing it on Audible was thus just perfect for me.

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It just ended without any resolution

Revisado: 11-27-23

I learned about the geology and history of the Arizona desert, but the book was basically nothing but a downer about life in the Southwest. The characters were all flawed and consumed by their flaws, and then it ended. What a waste of time.

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Exceptional

Revisado: 09-14-23

Missed many hours of sleep as not able to turn from this story. Now inspired to read more from the gifted researcher and storyteller Geraldine Brooks!

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A sharing of a lonely and isolated existence.

Revisado: 05-13-23

Enjoyed the story and even more, the Epilogue. It is helpful to listen to a shared horrific experience and ponder how others process the challenges.

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A Story for Our Times

Revisado: 04-05-23

How often does one find a writer so gifted, so smart, and so studious that he or she can distill our existential moment into a web of stories so poignant and relevant and meaningful that it is enough to change the way we think and hopefully the way we act? I will leave it with that. Once you start this book you will understand. The reader is also very gifted, and performs the story just as it should be told.

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just what I needed to hear… food for thought

Revisado: 01-03-23

The author sounded like a friend, or myself. I am further along in life, and comprehend what she has experienced and learned along the way. My only wish would have been that she could have been my age, and able to fast forward her insights, hope, and advice from experience. The book ended with teenage challenge, which is helpful, but I am twenty years into her future.

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Listening pleasure with deeper meaning

Revisado: 06-19-22

Obama skillfully writes a story of quality and richness. He artfully chooses his words and weaves a historical account along with insightful perspective. The listening experience is enhanced by the excellence with which he voices the tale. He was a man searching for history and family and along the way seems to have discovered many profound truths.

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Brilliant

Revisado: 06-02-22

Everything I hoped for in this listen. Priceless insights into the heart and mind of a most brilliant humanitarian, his office, historical accounts and all of this made easily understandable in his clear thinking and voiced reading.

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Interesting tone in both stories, but uneven results

Revisado: 03-23-22

You realize how important the reader is to the success of a story on Audible. The reader of first story here seemed to catch the right tone of Smiley’s prose and delivered its message just right, even though the message was rather diffused and confused (as life is sometimes).

The reader of the second story had a very assertive tone that, to me, didn’t really reflect the proper tone, unless Smiley’s intent was to make the narrator a dominating know-it-all whose arrogance led to ruining his family’s country life. A different reader might had adopted a less aggressive, more reflective tone and made the story less dark and more nuanced, but not less sad in outcome. Had I read the book rather than listened, I would have enjoyed the second story a lot, but I ended up just not liking the guy at all and feeling sorry for his wife and son.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Just what I needed.👀🌹

Revisado: 07-18-21

Gabrielle’s voice, logic, personal story, and guidance resonated with me, and I feel elevated by the experience of listening. I will seek other work by her. Her message is well grounded in reality, and made simple and attainable with guided meditation.

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