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Listeners join a group of friends at a birthday party who are discussing the murder of a fellow inhabitant of their peaceful Massachusetts town. When one of the partygoers is later discovered murdered, the story is told from the point of view of each character. As they do so, secrets and lies are revealed. The use of varied perspectives is complemented by the use of multiple... Read More

Leah Horowitz conveys the sense of a traditional culture with her able narration of Jewish terms and details evoking the Orthodox community in which sixth-grader Aviva Jacobs lives with her widowed mother. The story gives context to traditions like the mikvah (ritual bath), machanayim (a game Aviva excels at), the bas mitzvah (a coming-of-age celebration), and Aviva's complex... Read More

The many viewpoints of this large novel are well served by the large group of narrators, all of whom embody their characters admirably. Don't, however, expect their stories to come together or to come to any neat resolutions. The central event of the novel, the appearance of a new star, remains unexplained, so why shouldn't the stories? Each character's tale is gripping as... Read More

Narrator Leah Horowitz allows listeners to bask in the rhythms of Schmidt's writing and be moved by the story of two vulnerable teens. Meryl Lee is grieving the death of her best friend after his sudden accident. Horowitz embodies the lonely-lost feelings Meryl Lee labels "The Blank" so clearly that listeners feel her deeper hurt when her parents send her away to a school where... Read More