What She Left Behind

By: Ellen Marie Wiseman

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now 17, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloguing items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.

Clara Cartwright, 18 years old in 1929, is caught between her overbearing parents and her love for an Italian immigrant. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage, Clara's father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash, he can no longer afford her care and Clara is committed to the public asylum. Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara's story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother's violent act? Piecing together Clara's fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices - with shocking and unexpected results.

©2014 Ellen Marie Wiseman (P)2014 Tantor

Frightening depiction of the state of mental health care a century ago...

Predictable storyline. I was entertained and appalled but nothing new to this story inside a story. Both stories had predictable comfortable outcomes

Good story. Bad narration.

Great story. The narrator's voice was annoying making the main characters seem helpless rather than strong and determined. Otherwise it was a very engaging story.

Written for a junior high girl?

The story could have been decent, however the writing seemed to be so dumbed down that it insulted my intelligence. This is the kind of book I would have read when I was 13.

Very suspenseful portrayal of treatment of the mentally ill.

At first I was intrigued by the story line and fascinated as I tried to understand how the two stories fit together. The middle part of Izzy's story was almost to hard to read and I considered not finishing the book. However, I was too intrigued by the description of life in a mental institution and had to continue. I am a retired mental health therapist and find it very sad that there was no help for the people with mental illness. Even now it is often difficult to obtained needed treatment because it is not considered as important as treatment for physical illnesses and poorly covered by insurances. I loved the way the story ended and am glad I had the opportunity to read it.

Loved this book

Where does What She Left Behind rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

My favorite one so far.

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

It did, the back and forth of the two main characters really kept me wanting to listen more and more.

Which character – as performed by Tavia Gilbert – was your favorite?

Clara

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Too long for one sitting, but it was fabulous.

Any additional comments?

Loved it!

Great!

Amazing book brought me to tears many times!
Hard to imagine such things might have actually happened.
Performance was wonderful!

Loved it

this good kept my attention from start to finish. excellent. I will definitely share with others.

Worthwhile

It was hard to read because you felt so bad for the characters and what was going on in their lives. Yet I had a hard time putting the book down.

The ending was not happy, but it was satisfying.

If it's well worth the time.

What She Left Behind

Way too much time and drama on Clara's time at the asylum. Could have been a 5-stat if the drama with Clara was shortened. The reader was overburdened with little reward.

mediocre story

If it had been a hard copy book, we would have skipped to the end of it and quit. dialogue in the story was too melodramatic and simple. like I said before, if it had been a hard copy book we would have skipped the last couple chapters and then turned it back into the library