The Shell Collector

By: Hugh Howey

Narrated by: Samara Naeymi

The ocean is dying. The sea is growing warmer and is gradually rising. Seashells have become so rare that collecting them is now a national obsession. Flawless specimens sell like priceless works of art. Families hunt the tideline in the dark of night with flashlights. Crowds gather on beaches at the lowest of tides, hoping to get lucky.

Supreme among these collectors is Ness Wilde, CEO of Ocean Oil. Ness owns many of the best beaches, and he keeps them to himself. It's his fault the world turned out this way. And I aim to destroy him.

My name is Maya Walsh. You might be familiar with my shelling column in the Times. I was working on a series of pieces about Mr. Wilde, when out of the blue, he called. He says he wants to talk. But I don't think he's going to like what I have to say.

©2014 Hugh Howey (P)2015 Hugh Howey

I started off hating this book

I was going to return it... It seemed like the usual pro-green anti-science nonsense I can't stand... But for some reason I couldn't stop listening. And then things started to change... Much like the protagonist's own views.
I love this book. Howey manages to craft his reader's responses perfectly throughout, and before you know it you suddenly realize that the whole point is about using science to beat science.
It's about society's fickle nature, about the desire to find scapegoats to ease your own social guilt, about what sustainable, green, ethical, and clean really mean and how science is an integral backbone if we want to help the world grow.

Engaging

A good story. Typically well written by mr Howey. Excellently read by Ms. Naeymi. Would have given a overall 4 stars but romances aren't my type.

When seashells were money

SOMETHING different to read. I enjoy quirky stories now and then. I usually like the old mysteries and others similar. Then I look for "different" of any genre. I found this book and loved it! What if seashells were worth more than everything? Becoming scarcer due to the Oceans being thoroughly
polluted and the mollusks dying out. Scarse and beautiful, their possession was now what the wealthy used for capital. Interesting premise and a book I read straight through. It is a love story of people and of the ocean.

Nice easy read, puts you seaside

The story line was interesting, a bit different...a nice break between heavy reads.
If you enjoy the ocean, I'd recommend.

Pretty Good, Quick Read

It's not hard to follow along this book, once you realize it's set in the future. I liked the character motivations and growth more than I thought I would, so that was a nice surprise.
The narrator did a great job except for her tendency to become incredibly nasal.

Fantastic narration

Great book by Hugh Howey as always.

The narration was masterful. One narrator, but with using different “voices” and accents for each character and inflection as needed. Did an amazing job, really put me into the moment.

Romance with a message

A romantic novel with an ecological message .you find yourself hoping for a sweet ending and the delivers.at the same time you are hoping that the awful picture of the future is not as bleak as portrayed or that a solution will be found

Hugh has jumped to my top 10

I loved the silo books from chapter 1 but didn't know the the author. Hugh Howey has become one of my top 10 since then. I love his introspective glimpses of each of his characters, it really pulls me into the story more than anything else could. Listen to the story! You will love it!

Not what I expected but still, a good book!

“The Shell Collector” wasn’t exactly the kind of book I was hoping to read when I began listening, but, to my surprise, it was exactly the kind of book I needed to read at this time. This book is categorized as “science fiction” on Goodreads (I am assuming this is because Howey mostly writes science-fiction) but that is not the case with this book. I would call “The Shell Collector” more of a romance with some bits of speculative fiction sprinkled in

Once I dived into this book, I expected it to be a full-blown dystopian fiction and it wasn’t anywhere close to one. But very early on, I caught on to this and it was a good thing thing too, because it helped me finish this book faster. “The Shell Collector” is a quick, easy read but the time span within which this book progressed is incredibly slow…so when one chapter ends in the middle of the conversation, the next chapter, instead of switching scenes, picks up that same conversation. This was why it became easy to assume that there was going to be very little action happening in the novel. One might assume that this is disappointing, but it wasn’t…why? Because I needed a romance novel in my life right now. After having read “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones (not one of my best reading experiences nor an easy book to read), I needed something fluffy and “The Shell Collector” is basically just a fluffy, average romance story.

Although the setting takes place in a futuristic, not by much but still, world, the story mainly revolves around the relationship, and the conflicts, between Maya and Ness. Ness and his company are responsible for a lot of the world’s disasters and Maya, a reporter, is out to exhort revenge for being Ness's part in this disaster. But when Ness invites Maya for a conversation, she is not expecting to begin understanding him at a level that makes it harder for her to do her job.

As a romance, this book duplicates a lot of the common tropes found within the romance genre. Which was unfortunate, but as I was looking for a comfort read more than anything, I enjoyed reading this book nevertheless. What I did love about this book though, was the pace of the novel and the romance itself. As mentioned before, the story progresses at a very slow pace but it actually makes the romance seem a lot more realistic than the way in which the usual contemporary romance novels are written. So although there were some cliched parts in this story, it was still refreshing to see a well-plotted and believable build-up to the romance.

Although limited in its use of characters, the ones we get to see never for a moment felt flat or unbelievable to me. I enjoyed reading about them and although I cannot say I absolutely loved and adored them, I enjoyed the journey they partook in this book. I also enjoyed the writing of Mr. Howey. Although not as excellent, it was good enough to hold my interest and help me enjoy the story without being distracted by petty errors with grammar (which, unfortunately, happens more often than one would think).

And lastly, because I listened to the audiobook and did not read the physical book, I must comment on the excellent performance given by the narrator. She hits all the right attitudes, tones, and emotions perfectly and I enjoyed listening to her read The Shell Collector quite a lot. I would highly recommend this as an audiobook because it makes for a very relaxing, soothing read.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this audiobook from Audible in exchange for a review. All opinions expressed are my own and have not been influenced by any external motives.

Not as good as I had hoped

As a big fan of the Wool series, I couldn't wait to listen to this novel. After a few hours, I found that I was starting to predict the plot line, and that the dialog and actions of the main characters became far too contrived and convenient, but not in a believable or likeable way. The narrator tries in vain to save this story, but in the end I felt like an ocean storm had rolled through, not even leaving a nice shell behind to remember The Shell Collector by. Looking forward to future effort by Mr. Howey.