Eden

By: Andrea Kleine

Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt

Every other weekend, Hope and Eden - backpacks, Walkmans, and homework in hand - wait for their father to pick them up, as he always does, at a strip-mall bus stop. It's the divorce shuffle; they're used to it. Only this weekend, he's screwed up, forgotten, and their world will irrevocably change when a stranger lures them into his truck with a false story and smile.

More than 20 years later, Hope is that classic New York failure: a playwright with only one play produced long ago, newly evicted from an illegal sublet, working a humiliating temp job. Eden has long distanced herself from her family, and no one seems to know where she is.

When the man who abducted them is up for parole, the girls might be able to offer testimony to keep him jailed. Hope sets out to find her sister - and to find herself - and it becomes the journey of a lifetime, taking her from hippie communes to cities across the country. Suspenseful and moving, Eden asks: How much do our pasts define us, and what price do we pay if we break free?

©2018 Andrea Kleine (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Interesting psychological examination

The story was well developed, alternating between present and flashbacks to past events. I found it distracting to the point of irritation that every character voiced by the narrator, other than the main character, was performed in a stilted voice. It made them all sound like snobs, looking down on the main character as they interacted with her, which I don’t believe was the author’s intention.