Listen to Me

So. I feel it's almost unfair for me to rate this book so low, as it took me so long to complete it; normally, I'm a fairly fast reader, but that is dependent on two things: 1) I don't have crazy stuff going on in my life, and 2) the book keeps me engaged. I think that's relatively typical of most avid readers, but I felt I should clarify. As I am in the midst of wedding planning and other such things, I felt that I was unable to concentrate on this book.

That being said, this book wasn't what I anticipated, which is fine! I wish it had not been marketed, based on the blurb, as a sort of mystery/suspense/thriller, as that is decidedly not that book. It is more of an introspective look into a couple's life after the wife, Maggie, is mugged, and suffers a dramatic change in personality. There are alternating POVs each chapter, and I must say I found Maggie's voice and struggle much more complicated and compelling. I think it is telling that I had to look up the name of the husband (it's Mark, by the way) almost immediately after finishing, because he was just so blah to me.

I will keep this short as it was not that I didn't like this book, and I certainly wouldn't say no one should ever read it; I loved a lot of the prose and again, Maggie was a great character to me, but I felt myself slogging through each Mark chapter and found that it was much more character-driven than plot-driven. I usually love that, as characters are more important to me than plot nine times out of ten, but when there are only two main characters not including the best character, Gerome, RIP little guy and you don't care for reading the POV of one of them, it makes the book a chore to sit through.