INNOCENTS AND OTHERS

Two girls meet and become friends in the 1980s, drawn together by their shared love of film. Narrator January LaVoy's low-key style perfectly fits this somber story. As the young women become filmmakers, each takes a different road--one, a purist, creates controversial documentaries, and the other, who is more commercially minded, makes financially successful movies. As their careers and personal lives weave together over the years, they're also touched by two other women's life choices. All of them find there are hard lessons to be learned and high costs to be paid in pursuing their dreams. The book's dark, deep insights into filmmaking are a slow reveal, masterfully played out in LaVoy's rich, quiet voice and deliberate pacing. Her presentation is reminiscent of someone reluctantly revealing a painful secret. A.C.P. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2016]