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Hot Milk

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Hot Milk

By: Deborah Levy
Narrated by: Romola Garai
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About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, read by Romola Garai.

Two strangers arrive in a small Spanish fishing village. The older woman is suffering from mysterious paralysis, driven to seek a cure beyond the bounds of conventional medicine. Her daughter, Sofia, has spent years playing the reluctant detective in this mystery, struggling to understand her mother's illness.

Surrounded by the oppressive desert heat, searching for a cure to a defiant and quite possibly imagined disease, Sofia is forced to confront her difficult relationship with her mother. Examining female rage and sexuality, Deborah Levy explores the strange and monstrous nature of motherhood, testing the bonds of parent and child to a breaking point.

©2016 Deborah Levy (P)2016 Penguin Audio Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction

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I really enjoyed this, it is a great character novel and the performance is fantastic, particularly the voice of the mother.

A great character novel

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After reading great reviews I expected something really good.
But this was mediocre at best... easy listening and narration was ok. But I felt like the story was bittie and lacking- constantly building up to something but went nowhere. It left me feeling neither satisfied or disappointed.

Mediocre at best

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Powerful punchline but overall miserable- at times superficial
The relationship with water was well done
The relationship with mother / Father/ illness were strong
The love interests unconvincing - added little
The doctor/quack could have been built on

Powerful punchline but miserable- at time superficial

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Good light read, escapism coupled with a twist or two for the beach!
Not too heavy and now I’m filliing space for the word count

Good light reading with a subtle twist or two

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Deborah Levy is a wonderful writer and is able to explore characters in a detailed way.

Unfortunately the storyline is a little too convoluted, rather emotional with little substance about an adult daughter's relationship with both her parents. It could be cut down to half the length and even then it may be too long. This may appeal to drama lovers but be warned - the story can be summed up in a sentence.

Well read and written but too long and fluffy

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I really enjoyed the language of this book and the metaphors. It was a really relaxing listen too. Great job by the narrator. Only scored low because I think the actual story could have been stronger.

Lyrical

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Great book. Witty and insightful. Spoilt by terribke monotone reader wish I'd read it myself

fascinating

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When I read this book I absolutely loved it. I later got the Audible version as an alternative to re-reading it. Everything that I liked in the printed book is still discoverable. However, the reading has reduced the pleasure I can take in it. I've seen other reviews here that praise Romola Garai's beautiful voice. Perhaps she does have a beautiful voice but it's a ponderous reading that leaches all notes of humour from the text leaving it more starkly dark than the book. The reading of the main protagonist is, I guess, "defensible": the kind of interpretation that might be interesting if you've already heard several others. It's a reading that I find casts the main character as more deliberate and less attractive than the character as written. The reading of the mother, Rose, is good. The reading of all of the other characters is so heavily mannered and weirdly inflected that it changes and destroys every one of them. For a book set primarily in Spain, it's odd not to find any trace of a Spanish accent. But listen to the sample and judge for yourself. It's a terrific book that survives the quirky performance.

Fantastic story, leaden performance

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About half way thought this book I nearly gave up - I really couldn't see where it was going. However, having decided to listen for a long stretch, I realised it was a book that needed to be "read" almost in one go. The reader was excellent and pushed the narrative along and one gradually got the point of the story. I would definitely recommend listening to it if you have time to stick with it and then gradually you get a sense of the flow of the book. But I feel it's not a book to be listened to in small snippets.

Worth sticking with

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Very well written, with prose that often merges into poetry. The author uses circular layers to make this a beautiful and evocative work. However, as usually with complex characters, the emotional connection with them was not there in the main. Although it is a story of self discovery and vanquishing personal demons, I found myself rooting for no one until the very end.

Challengingly complex characters.

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