Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA

Radish's novel suffers in the transition to audio. Her constant detailed analyses of the main character's emotions, her endless descriptions and her numerous similar scenes of women friends bonding and bashing the men in their lives becomes tedious and repetitive when read aloud on audio and slows the pace to a snail's crawl. This is an audiobook that cries out for abridgment. Barbara McCulloh reads with expression, and her tone conveys sympathy and compassion for the characters' situations, but she does little to differentiate the voices of the female characters, so they all blur together in the listeners' mind, indistinguishable from each other. This is a novel better enjoyed in print than on audio. Simultaneous release with the Bantam hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 21).