Blue Flowers Audiobook By Carola Saavedra cover art

Blue Flowers

A Novel

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Blue Flowers

By: Carola Saavedra
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Lauren Ezzo
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $13.50

Buy for $13.50

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

"Ravishing...as if Saavedra were a modern-day Borges." (Luis Alberto Urrea, O: The Oprah Magazine)

A novel of dark obsession, missed connections, and violent love.

Marcos has just been through a divorce and moved into a new apartment. He feels alienated from his ex-wife, from his daughter, from society; everything feels flat and fake to him. He begins to receive letters at his new address from an anonymous troubled woman who signs off as "A." and who clearly believes she is writing to the former tenant, her ex-lover, in the aftermath of a violent heartbreak. Marcos falls under the spell of the manic, hypnotic missives, and for the first time in years, something moves him.

Blue Flowers alternates between the letters detailing the dissolution of A.'s relationship, and Marcos' growing fixation with this damaged person. The letters become a kind of exorcism as both A.'s epistolary affair and Marcos' personal life reach a crisis point. Possessed by A., he is driven to discover her true identity. Blue Flowers is a dark portrait of desire, undermining accepted truths about love and sex, violence and fear, men and women.

©2020 Carola Saavedra (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Women's Fiction Heartfelt
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"Ravishing...as if Saavedra were a modern-day Borges. Translated brilliantly from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn, Blue Flowers plays out in a musical dance between A’s letters and the slow immolation of Marcos’s world as he grows addicted to them. It’s a mystery, yes. It might be a ghost story. It is sexy, and often unsettling. By the end, you could be forgiven for chewing your fingernails, wondering whether it’s all a figment of Marcos’s imagination. Or not." (Luis Alberto Urrea, O: The Oprah Magazine)

"Saavedra’s writing, particularly in the raw and vulnerable epistles, feels relentless and evocative in Hahn’s translation and creates intensity inside this tale shaped by characters strongly preoccupied with words and meaning. Thematically layered and psychologically demanding, this is a book for readers willing to explore uneasy relationship dynamics." (Booklist)

"Captivating... In chapters alternating between letters and Marcos’s reactions, Saavedra steadily unveils the darkness permeating the lives of her protagonists, and in doing so creates a literary psychological thriller that questions what is real and what is imagined. This tale of desire and yearning is impossible to put down." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Blue Flowers

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not sure what to think

I was very interested in this book. Started off good. But then the ending was strange. Maybe I didn’t understand it? But I was waiting to find out who A was and didn’t.
PS. The male narrator is FANTASTIC . I’d listen to more books with him. The female was good but... I don’t know. She started to annoy me after a while.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Insufferable

Overacted to the point of being intolerable to listen to. Cannot fully blame the actors, as both performances are so over the top -- in many cases, the female narrator reading the letters is SHOUTING at you for minutes on end -- that I have to imagine the fault lies with the VO director.

Performances aside, one of the most boring, pointless, repetitive, completely uninteresting stories I've had the displeasure of listening to. Not a single compelling section in a short-but-not-short-enough 5 hours, which likely would have been 3 hours if characters didn't repeat the most banal thoughts and observations over and over and over. This recording is a form of punishment.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Should have been a short story

Repetitive theme and while worthy, experienced as a never ending droning story seemingly without end. Sorry!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!