Commonwealth

Ann Patchett is a favorite author. Not up to some of her earlier work. A challenge to keep the characters straight at times.

Slow to get into this plot

There is no plot - it is simply a biography of twin families. For me, that makes no connection to my sense of a satisfactory ending, in realty no ending at all. Of the three elements one would expect - beginning middle end - the letter two are missing.

I’m in a mission to read all Ann Patchett’s novels. They are all vastly different with great plots and character development.. and the stories always unravel beautifully. A good read / listen, the narration was great. I just listened to State of Wonder which was fabulous!! Also, read by the same narrator. Other favs: Bel Canto, The Dutch House and The Patron Saint of Liars.

This book was a real disappointment. There were a lot of characters and none of them were adequately developed. I am guessing the author identified with Fran as there was way too much time spent on her and her inexplicable relationship with Leo, a much older man who ok writes Fran’s family story based presumably on pillow talk (but no pillows are discussed...that’s a detail donchaknow). The narrator was fabulous tho...only reason why I kept listening—-I thought it HAD to get better (but it did not)

I really enjoyed the book.

I thought Hope Davis did a great job narrating this and differentiating her voice based on the characters. The book was just "eh" to me. Listened to it all because I simply can't stop in the middle, but I was tempted.

I loved this book. It was the perfect book at the perfect time in my life . I was glad I kept notes on who each character was. It helped me keep track of all of them. I thought the narrator was especially good. The best I have heard in a long time. She fit each character well without exaggerating the emotions .

The flashbacks were difficult for me, because several character, I did not understand their motivations.

Did not enjoy. Difficult to follow and uninteresting.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The characters' evolution over time was really fun to see. This went in so many directions, but I enjoyed how it all came together in the end. Life goes on.

Loved this book. Narrative structure interesting. Characters well developed. Hope Davis did a beautiful reading.

Nothing happens except long meeting date, lots of cooking.

The silly voices and the weird inflection the narrator imposed on this book really detracted from the story, in my opinion. I definitely prefer audiobooks when they are READ to me, instead of pseudo acted out. Aside from the narration, the story itself was very thin and predicable and barely kept my attention. I am not sure I would have done better reading the book myself.