Kinder Than Solitude Audiobook By Yiyun Li cover art

Kinder Than Solitude

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Kinder Than Solitude

By: Yiyun Li
Narrated by: Angela Lin
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When Moran, Ruyu, and Boyang were young, they were involved in a mysterious “accident” in which a friend of theirs was poisoned. Grown up, the three friends are separated by distance and personal estrangement. Moran and Ruyu live in the United States, Boyang in China; all three are haunted by what really happened in their youth, and by doubt about themselves. In California, Ruyu helps a local woman care for her family and home, and avoids entanglements, as she has done all her life. In Wisconsin, Moran visits her ex-husband, whose kindness once overcame her flight into solitude. In Beijing, Boyang struggles to deal with an inability to love, and with the outcome of what happened among the three friends 20 years ago.

©2014 Yiyun Li (P)2014 Recorded Books Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Psychological United States Women's Fiction World Literature
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One reviewer suggested this novel would have benefited from much stricter editing. I am not one to agree with that optimistic assessment. I simply wish I had back the time spent reading and listening to this. The dialogue is Randian (and that is most definitely not a compliment), the characters and plot are both poor and poorly developed, and the author's use of changes in perspective and timing come across as purely for display, ineffective at that. Random observations, trite musings, and the collection of phrase-turns don't help, either. I had thought the author was male given the plasticity of the female characters, which is a reminder to keep an open mind. Regrettably, the narration also disappoints.

Big dissapointment

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I was mesmerized by this book, and read it in a couple of days. Now trying to say what I liked about it, I hesitate, feeling the characters of this novel would want to question whatever I said.
Ruyu, the unknowable cypher at the heart of this story, I felt some kinship with, as a loner who does not feel anyone has a right to my story. But how she talked at first was so alienating that neither of the other main characters could get her, fundamentally.
By the end, the three lived very different lives, but were all people who if someone said something, even something unflattering, would think about whether it was true.

Could not stop listening

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Engaging and emotional performance on a bleak yet powerful story. I enjoy the characters more than the plot.

Great Performance

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This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Someone with a lot of patience

Has Kinder Than Solitude turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The themes were promising, but I found it impossible to care about the characters.

Uninteresting, unsympathetic characters

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