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Title: The Quickening

Author: Michelle Hoover

Narrator: Carrington MacDuffie, Bernadette Dunne

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-29-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Enidina Current and Mary Morrow live on neighboring farms in the flat, hard country of the upper Midwest during the early 1900s. This hardscrabble life comes easily to some, like Eddie, but for the deeply religious Mary, farming is at odds with her more cosmopolitan inclinations. Still, Mary creates a clean and orderly home life for her stormy husband, Jack, and her sons, while she adapts to the isolation of a rural town through the inspiration of a local preacher.

She is the first to befriend Eddie in a relationship that will prove as rugged as the ground they walk on. Despite having little in common, Eddie and Mary need one another for survival and companionship. But as the Great Depression threatens, the delicate balance of their reliance on one another tips, pitting neighbor against neighbor, exposing the dark secrets they hide from one another, and triggering a series of disquieting events that threatens to unravel not only their friendship but their families as well.

In this luminous and unforgettable debut, Michelle Hoover explores the polarization of the human soul in times of hardship and the instinctual drive for self-preservation by whatever means necessary. The Quickening stands as a novel of lyrical precision and historical consequence, reflecting the resilience and sacrifices required even now in our modern troubled times.

Critic Reviews:

In this finely wrought and starkly atmospheric narrative, Hoovers characters carry deep secrets, and their emotions are as intense as the acts of nature that shape their world. (Publishers Weekly)

A vivid, pastoral panoramaimbued throughout with a careful and evenly wrought lyricism. (Kirkus Reviews)

Members Reviews:

Beautiful, Well Crafted Writing; Not always easy to understand

I didn't realize until after I had finished the book it was based on the journal of one of the author's ancestors, which I find endearing. This is the story of two farm wives who couldn't be more different from each other. Being neighbors they are forced into an uneasy friendship with each other. The storyline was more than I expected, dealing with events and tragedies that are as true today as they were in the time period of the story. There were times that the writing was both beautiful and perfectly conveyed the emotion of the moment, and I thought the characters were well developed. However, I wasn't always clear on what was happening on the story and often felt like I was guessing at what event was occurring.

A Book I Will Remember Always

I've had The Quickening on my Kindle for a while. Finally opened it up and started reading. I couldn't stop. Michelle Hoover writes as if she lived the lives of her two main characters, Mary and Enidina. I've never read anything about 1920s and 1930s in rural America that captured the feeling of being there as well as this book. The characters lead very constrained lives, never straying far from home, not owning much except the farms that sustain them, obeying (and sometimes breaking) strict unwritten rules of behavior. Hoover paints portraits of all of her characters that will stay with me. I suffered with them, got angry when they did, and, in the odd moment when they were happy, I rejoiced for them. Thank you, Michelle Hoover.