You Should Have Known

De: Jean Hanff Korelitz

Narrado por: Christina Delaine

Listen to the "rollickingly good literary thriller" and New York Times best seller that's the inspiration for the HBO limited series The Undoing, premiering October 25 and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant (Vanity Fair).

Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice, her days are full of familiar things: she lives in the very New York apartment in which she was raised, and sends Henry to the school she herself once attended.

Dismayed by the ways in which women delude themselves, Grace is also the author of a book You Should Have Known, in which she cautions women to really hear what men are trying to tell them. But weeks before the book is published a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only an ongoing chain of terrible revelations.

Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster, and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.

©2014 Jean Hanff Korelitz (P)2014 Hachette Audio

it progressed so slow

Would you listen to You Should Have Known again? Why?

No. I think I would listen to Admission again, skipping the pregnancy part. However not this book again.

What did you like best about this story?

the plot is interesting, but it progresses so slow that the suspense is damaged. The readers have already guessed a lot of things and are eager to go to the next step, but ...

What about Christina Delaine’s performance did you like?

wonderful

Who was the most memorable character of You Should Have Known and why?

Grace

Any additional comments?

Oh, I searched the internet but can't find the plot summary. I just want to get it finished. The plot is so slow that I am practically driven crazy. If I can find a plot summary, I can skip the rest of the book. Right now I am at 40%, but it takes super-human patience to continue the listening.

Watch The Undoing instead

I watched the fabulous HBO 6 episode series first and then listened on Audible to this book which inspired the series. The series is five stars. The book is 3 stars. The premise is great—but the book didn’t deliver what the series did.

Rich, atmospheric, character driven

I enjoyed the book and the narration was excellent. This is not, however, a thriller (as one review described) and the mystery aspect was not the main focus. This was an atmospheric, emotional journey surrounding a mystery. I might call it the “Big Little Lies” of the upper east side.

Korelitz carefully weaves details into her main theme so that the reader gets to see the clues for themself. The one part that annoyed me was the burgeoning future romance near the end. It felt like pandering in on otherwise emotionally honest book.

Although slow paced and a bit overly slow in a couple spots, I enjoyed it enough to listen straight through.

Awesomely Different

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Yes, I loved how the book kept throwing in new twists. I do not usually read/listen to books of this nature, but this book has left me looking for more.

This was amazing!

Fantastic plot line, great narration. Really enjoyed this book, except for the fact that it had to end.

The storyline was good

This story was way too long. The storyline was good, but way too many tangents and unnecessary side stories.

A pleasant moment, but...

This book is not a mysterie and classifying it as such will disappoint some readers.

No one likes a know it all.

Any additional comments?

At first, I did not care for the lead character of the book – she came off as a know it all. I almost gave it up. As the book progresses, this character finds she was wrong about nearly everything she thought she knew. So . . . did I like her more because she was “knocked off her high horse”. I hope not. I believe I liked the book because it was an interesting (if sometimes predictable story), because the writing was not poor and the performance was not distracting. It’s a book about figuring out life is not exactly as you hope or exactly as you believe, but that in the end that might be just fine.

Slow start but worth it

The first half of this book was too slow for me. I really didn’t connect with Grace and kept thinking I will abandon. Then I started to get hooked. In the end an interesting listen ... just a little too detailed and long for me.

bit slow but quite interesting

Nice descriptions, a bit slow in places but interesting story and believable. Not a mystery buy a woman and so dealing with fallout of pathological spouse