And She Was

By: Alison Gaylin

Narrated by: Sheila Stasack

On a summer afternoon in 1998, six-year-old Iris Neff walked away from a barbecue in her small suburban town...and vanished.

Missing persons investigator Brenna Spector has a rare neurological disorder that enables her to recall every detail of every day of her life. A blessing and a curse, it began in childhood, when her older sister stepped into a strange car never to be seen again, and it’s proven invaluable in her work. But it hasn’t helped her solve the mystery that haunts her above all others - and it didn’t lead her to little Iris. When a local woman, Carol Wentz, disappears 11 years later, Brenna uncovers bizarre connections between the missing woman, the long-gone little girl...and herself.

©2012 Alison Gaylin (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Different. Enjoyable. Not at all Predictable.

Brenna is unique, intuitive, flawed, loving, brave, tough, clever, strong and remembers every moment of her life. A gift and a curse.
A great! mystery turning more corners than one can follow, yet the re

Good story…Atrocious narration!

I hung in there until the end because this was actually a pretty good story, well written and fairly suspenseful, but it required an amazing amount of perseverance and concentration to do so because of the way this book was read. The sad part is the narrator could have been fine. When she was just reading the “basic” parts of the story in her natural voice she did great and you could tolerate her, but whenever she decided to do a character voice, Oh My Gosh! I have never heard anything so horrible! I don’t know how the distributor of this Audible book let this go out to the public. It was so hard to listen to and get past. She made her characters sound like whiny ,annoying, three-year-old children. No, whiny, annoying, three-year-old children even sound better. It is beyond me how she could’ve thought this was acceptable. Do yourself a favor and buy the book and read it, don’t listen to this Audible book.

Weird narration

The voice of one of the key characters was done so weirdly—male character by female narrator—I found it both distracting, and early on what gender the character was. The main detective’s ability to remember everything was interesting, but I couldn’t get into the book. Her back story confused me.

A waste of time...

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes, pretty much everything.The plot was not cohesive. The main character has some weird kind of memory condition (cannot forget anything) that honestly makes it seem like she's jumping around in some kind of personal time machine: totally distracting to the main story, and really unbelievable if you ask me. How could this person even function in her day to day life? Most of the characters were just plain unlikable, especially her assistant-what an idiot! I could go on and on--it's bad writing, just BAD. The narration just seals it's fate in my opinion. As I already mentioned the plot just jumps around too much and repeats itself. For instance, mentioning a stupid blue car over and over and never getting to the point! Instead of moving at a pace to tie things together, it's very disjointed, kind of like a bad dream that doesn't make any sense, you just want it to be OVER.

Has And She Was turned you off from other books in this genre?

Not at all. I love truly good suspense/thrillers, this just wasn't good, suspenseful or thrilling.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Sadly, the narrator isn't very skilled at male voices.

Did And She Was inspire you to do anything?

Turn it off.

Any additional comments?

I tried to like this book- I really did, but almost three hours in, I decided enough was enough!

Horrible Narration!

I couldn't get past the first few chapters because of the Narration. I just couldn't listen to the narrator do the winey nasal voice of Nelson (Carol's husband) and the weird all over the place voice for the personality of Brenna's assistant.

Don't Waste Your Time

I only made it an hour and a half in and I was so confused and bored. Don't waste your time. The story jumps all over the place and you can't keep up. I love books that take place in two different times but this one failed.

Narration is a nightmare

I'm still reading, and in print, that's fine. I'm interested in the story. But the audible narration... WHO GAVE THE GREEN LIGHT FOR THIS ATROCITY OF A NARRATION??!!! I am ticked I wasted an audible credit on this. Good heavens it's awful. And I usually feel too bad to leave bad reviews. The husband's "voice" .... I have no words.