State of Paradise - Laura van den Berg - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Laura van den Berg

NARRATOR: Megan Tusing.

GENRE: Literary Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: July 9, 2024.

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction that goes much beyond what the blurb indicates. Almost stream-of-consciousness in its plotting and too wild in its twists. Individual elements great, but didn't come together cohesively. Concentrating on the audio version was a chore.

No personal ‘Plot Preview’ this time. I truly don’t know where to begin and what to include or exclude! Please read the GR blurb to know what the book is about.

On paper, this novel has many enticing elements: a dystopian feel with some strange technology, climate crises in Florida, extreme weather, missing persons mystery, dysfunctional family, ghostwriting and its perks and perils, covid pandemic, bizarre cults, asylum troubles, alternate dimensions, and absurd obsessions (thanks to the weird fascination that the protagonist has with her belly button and how deeply cavernous it has become.) Each of these topics has enough merit to deliver a whammy, but do they really fit well with each other? Can one 224-page novel do justice to so many distinct themes? In my humble opinion, no.

The Gestalt theory declares that the whole of anything is greater than the sum of its parts. In this book however, the individual parts are great, but the book feels too disjointed at the macro level. One main reason for this is the protagonist’s tendency to jump from topic to topic with no warning whatsoever. The resultant narrative feels like stream-of-consciousness verbiage, with no rhyme or reason to the flow. Stream-of-consciousness NEVER works for me, so there was no way to save this experience, especially in the audio format.

On the positive side, the descriptive writing is great. The author’s words are quite immersive and make us feel her character’s emotions well. The final quarter contains some unexpected revelations, which nudged up my rating. There are some intriguing characters as well, though I couldn’t relate to any of them.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at a little more than five and a half hours, is narrated by Megan Tusing. She does a great job, with her diction and her emotions well on target. But with the writing being so random, I simply couldn’t focus on the plot development. I don’t know if I can recommend the audiobook to everyone, but if you are comfortable with listening to stream-of-consciousness writing without losing your grasp of the underlying plotline, the audio version might work for you.

All in all, this book was not for me. It clicked in bits and pieces, but concentrating on the random musings was too tricky on audio.

Recommended to lit fic lovers who enjoy stream-of-consciousness writing with twisty but bizarre revelations.

My thanks to Spotify Audiobooks for providing the ALC of “State of Paradise” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook. Sorry this didn’t work out better.