Tara Flynn takes listeners to Ireland, where they meet the awkward yet lovable Rachel Murray. The novel starts in the year 2022 but is mostly told in a flashback starting with the year 2010 and progressing forward. Rachel reminisces about her life in her 20s, when she was juggling her newfound friendship with roommate James Devlin and her crush on her married college professor, Dr. Fred Byrne. That crush would change the trio's futures. Flynn portrays Rachel's wit, vulnerabilities, and passions with fervor and poise. Her soothing Irish lilt is enjoyable and will have listeners hanging on every word as they discover how the titular "incident" will forever transform the main characters' lives.
Pub Date: 2023
Duration: 9 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593741870
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date:
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator's role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn't a protagonist. The author's well-written story--which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny--uses quarterback Joe Theismann's 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin.
Pub Date:
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781681680057
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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