#and there's a two-year waitlist for the person in the grandma's position

[sassysnowperson]

Sass Talks Books: Thank You for Listening, by Julia Whelan

Basic Plot: An audiobook narrator, who doesn't record romance books (anymore - she needed to break into the industry somehow), is given the financial opportunity of a lifetime...recording a romance book. It's a dual narration book, too, which means working with another narrator. Her recording partner quickly becomes one of the best perks of the project, warm and funny and *real* feeling, despite the fact they've never met. (They've never met, right?)

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this one. The author IS an audiobook narrator, writing a book about two audiobooks narrators, and I listed to the audiobook...narrated by the author. I thoroughly recommend that reading experience, by the way. There's a lot of little moments with the two talented voice actor characters slipping into different accents, talking about tone and inflection, and it's an absolute delight to hear the narrator delivering on the script she wrote for herself. As for the story itself, I'm not far enough into the romance world to know if this book deviates from the romance novel beats enough that it's drifted out of the category, but I can say that it was absolutely charming and enjoyable. And, that the changes made dulled the edges of the parts of romance I bounce off of the most while absolutely being a very loving send-up of the genre. The connection between the two people was very real, but it wasn't the only (or even, I would argue, the most important) relationship developing and changing in the book.

Every character felt connected in a complicated web of love and relationships with other people - it was a joy. And it was used to explore some toothy things that I normally don't get in a book this fun - grief, regret, how you deal with the losses you can't get back, how you rebuild a life. It stayed warm-hearted and kind as a book, but it didn't shy away from real fights, insecurities, and pain.

A handful of warnings to go along with that: the MC has lost an eye, and deals with ableism, and some negative self-perception. There's some diet-culture-based disordered eating for the MC's best friend (not displayed as a good thing). The MC's relationship with her dad has some brutal fights where there's emotional manipulation happening. There's also a real look at the complications of dementia - discussed below.

The protagonist's relationship with her grandmother is a key point of the story, and the grandmother is dealing with encroachment of memory loss and personality change that comes along with dementia. This part surprised me - I work with older adults in long-term care and lol, was not expecting that my professional life would be relevant to the situation. The author made a few errors with the care system in California (where our grandma is based, and where I work). But frankly, only a few, and the way the dementia progressed wasn't one of them. It was good, and heartbreaking, and one of my favorite parts.

Wow...I wrote a lot about this. Suppose that makes sense, considering it was my experience of the book itself. I expected something light and fun, and while I got it, there was depth there too that was a very welcome surprise.