into the darkest corner by elizabeth haynes

I can't seem to get the whole picture, can't get any peripheral vision here. This book is the pared-down Baby Bear version, and reading 'Darkest Corner' is like looking through a peephole into various aspects of relationship dysfunction and violence. But not TOO much - just a Goldilocks version. While the topic and premise for the story are 'spot on', I as a reader usually like to hear more from, and more about, the characters in terms of backstory, interests outside of the primary story arc, life trajectories, all in all just more context. I wanted very much to get into this book, and to follow all the hype, but.

She did a lot of make this book the gripping listen that it was. She was absolutely perfect for this book, but I suspect she'd be great at other British novels, too. I don't recall listening to anything she's read before, but I will definitely seek her work out. Special kudos to the narrator, Karen Cass. I'm now sitting here, knowing that whatever I choose to listen to next won't be as good. Very good - lots of 'hold your breath' moments, lots of interesting twists.

The story took off, and from then on, I was hooked. But all was redeemed as the end of Part One loomed. I also spent time pondering why it is that women who like the bad boys of the bunch, are surprised to find out that they're really. How could they have liked something so boring? I had almost completely run out of patience with hour after hour of tales of working girls drinking themselves into oblivion at night, looking for someone to 'shag', then struggling to work in the morning, hungover. I was almost ready to give up - even checked, midstream, to see what other readers were saying. Okay - it's a great book, if you can get past the first four hours or so. All in all I persevered to the end of this book but would not recommend unless you had nothing better to listen to. I could see the point in the darker sides to the story but at the beginning and throughout most of the book, using bad language was not required. I also found the great overuse of the 'F' word thoughout the book completely unneccesary. Not sure why the narrator changed, would have been preferable for the female narrator to continue throughout the whole book. Also the constant naming of who was speaking every time the character changed in the court chapters was just simply annoying, we should not need 'Miss Bartlett', 'Mrs Scott' etc etc before every sentence to know who was speaking, the narrator should be able to convey this. The two different narrators was confusing especially when at one moment Sylvia was being done in a woman's voice and I knew who she was, to being done in a man's voice during the chapters done in court. Overall I almost enjoyed this book, but the strong desire to turn off happened more than once.

Into the darkest corner by elizabeth haynes