When You Read This

A Novel

By: Mary Adkins

Narrated by: Sarah Naughton

For fans of Maria Semple and Rainbow Rowell, a comedy-drama for the digital age: an epistolary debut novel about the ties that bind and break our hearts.

Iris Massey is gone.
But she’s left something behind.

For four years, Iris Massey worked side by side with PR maven Smith Simonyi, helping clients perfect their brands. But Iris has died, taken by terminal illness at only thirty-three. Adrift without his friend and colleague, Smith is surprised to discover that in her last six months, Iris created a blog filled with sharp and often funny musings on the end of a life not quite fulfilled. She also made one final request: for Smith to get her posts published as a book. With the help of his charmingly eager, if overbearingly forthright, new intern Carl, Smith tackles the task of fulfilling Iris’s last wish.

Before he can do so, though, he must get the approval of Iris’ big sister Jade, an haute cuisine chef who’s been knocked sideways by her loss. Each carrying their own baggage, Smith and Jade end up on a collision course with their own unresolved pasts and with each other.

Told in a series of e-mails, blog posts, online therapy submissions, text messages, legal correspondence, home-rental bookings, and other snippets of our virtual lives, When You Read This is a deft, captivating romantic comedy—funny, tragic, surprising, and bittersweet—that candidly reveals how we find new beginnings after loss.

Life, Technology, Sorrow, and Love

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."-----Joan Didion
This is a clever, heartfelt book. Sarah Naughton's performance is perfection and supports the work immensely. I did find a few elements of the story to be predictable and so four stars instead of five. This book is for anyone who needs to feel more connected.

Fast read

Interesting exchange of messages. Light read for a heavy topic. Subtle intrigue. Fresh, fast reading with interesting lead character.

Pleasantly surprised

I was skeptical when I first started listening because I didn’t realize that the format would all be via text conversations, but once I got used to it I was sucked in. I’m not sure if it felt like I was snooping or something, but it was a very engaging story.

Read in Print

This is a very difficult listen. All the headings with the e mails are a very tedious listen, making the progression of the plot very slow. In Print, I think the story would move much more smoothly. The book is a real window into communication in the '20's. My compliant with the narration isn't with Naughton, who brings the right tenor to the emails.