STATE OF WONDER

The audiobook equivalent of "couldn't put it down" must be "couldn't pause it." There was little pause time during this reviewer's amazing experience of Patchett’s new novel. Hope Davis astutely paces the suspenseful odyssey from a sedate Minnesota pharmaceutical lab to the darkest Amazonian jungle. Researcher Marina Singh is dispatched to remote Brazil to investigate a colleague's death while conducting research on a new fertility drug. Davis intuits each of the powerful personas and is particularly memorable as Marina's forceful and didactic 73-year-old mentor, Dr. Swenson, who has remained deliberately incognito as she studies the Lakashi tribe and their medical miracles for decades. Davis expresses a vivid vocal range of ages, as well as Australian, German, and Brazilian accents. Patchett's exquisite prose immerses the listener through the novel’s striking climax, which shatters the jungle's ferociously guarded mysteries. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2012 Audies Winner © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2011]