Devi Nair
🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by Hillary Huber ⏱ Duration: 9 hours 🏷️ Publisher: Books on Tape / Berkley | March 11, 2025
I almost didn't read the book. Twice. Let that sink in.
I stumbled across this book entirely by accident, spotted in a library I wandered into mid-travel, in a town I can't even name on a map. My first reaction to the title was genuinely judgemental. 'Who reads a book with a name that long?' Then I read the blurb, saved it on my holds, and promptly forgot about it. But then, I pressed play, and lost myself completely.
This book grabbed me by the collar within minutes and refused to let go. Colleen Oakley has written something that defies its own genre labels. This isn’t romance. I’ll stand by that. And while there are elements of mystery, calling it that feels like missing the point. This is a marriage story: raw, familiar, and uncomfortably accurate at times. Jane and Dan feel like every couple who’s been together long enough to know each other too well and not enough at the same time. Their dynamic is equal parts frustrating and deeply endearing. The miscommunication is peak realism, and the silent assumptions are even better.
The dual POV narration is seamlessly executed, with each perspective adding a new layer of context that keeps you constantly reframing everything you just read. And then there's Hillary Huber. I cannot overstate what she brings to this audiobook. She doesn't just switch between Jane and Dan, she inhabits them. The frustration, the dry humor, the quiet ache underneath every exchange. Huber renders it all with such precision and emotional intelligence that I forgot, more than once, that I was listening to one narrator.
This is one of those rare reads that leaves you wondering how you almost missed it entirely.
Would I recommend it? Whether you're a fan of domestic fiction, hostage-situation thrillers, or just stories that remind you why human beings are both exhausting and completely worth it, this one delivers. Funny, tender, twisty, and impossible to put down (or in my case, pause). This is one of those books that quietly becomes a favorite before you even realize it.
🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by Hillary Huber ⏱ Duration: 9 hours 🏷️ Publisher: Books on Tape / Berkley | March 11, 2025
I almost didn't read the book. Twice. Let that sink in.
I stumbled across this book entirely by accident, spotted in a library I wandered into mid-travel, in a town I can't even name on a map. My first reaction to the title was genuinely judgemental. 'Who reads a book with a name that long?' Then I read the blurb, saved it on my holds, and promptly forgot about it. But then, I pressed play, and lost myself completely.
This book grabbed me by the collar within minutes and refused to let go. Colleen Oakley has written something that defies its own genre labels. This isn’t romance. I’ll stand by that. And while there are elements of mystery, calling it that feels like missing the point. This is a marriage story: raw, familiar, and uncomfortably accurate at times. Jane and Dan feel like every couple who’s been together long enough to know each other too well and not enough at the same time. Their dynamic is equal parts frustrating and deeply endearing. The miscommunication is peak realism, and the silent assumptions are even better.
The dual POV narration is seamlessly executed, with each perspective adding a new layer of context that keeps you constantly reframing everything you just read. And then there's Hillary Huber. I cannot overstate what she brings to this audiobook. She doesn't just switch between Jane and Dan, she inhabits them. The frustration, the dry humor, the quiet ache underneath every exchange. Huber renders it all with such precision and emotional intelligence that I forgot, more than once, that I was listening to one narrator.
This is one of those rare reads that leaves you wondering how you almost missed it entirely.
Would I recommend it? Whether you're a fan of domestic fiction, hostage-situation thrillers, or just stories that remind you why human beings are both exhausting and completely worth it, this one delivers. Funny, tender, twisty, and impossible to put down (or in my case, pause). This is one of those books that quietly becomes a favorite before you even realize it.