A cute little story I enjoyed on the road during a wintery day. 

Energy: Gallant. Familiar. Exhausting. 

Scene: 🇬🇧 Late 2022, leading to the Christmas holidays in a British village. 

Perspective: We follow multiple members of a club that puts on local plays (in this case, a rendition of Jack and the Beanstalk to fundraise for a new church roof). 

 

🐕 Howls: The epistolary format became less effective for me once it was clear what had happened. 

🐩 Tail Wags: The epistolary format overall. The caricatures of characters that felt so real. The problems, mix-ups, and sabotage. 

 

I could only get this on audio, but it was surprisingly easy to follow despite it being an extensive cast of characters all communicating online. Excellent voices and expressive narration helped to differentiate everyone too.

 

The story is sad and silly, but how it’s told felt true to life. The nit-picking, passive-aggressive comments, self-centred ramblings from certain members…it was a little satirical but also word-for-word how petty people communicate. Depending on what your inbox looks like rn, this could be cathartic or triggering 😅

 

Not that big a deal, and maybe the downside of epistolary in general, but once all the tea was spilled the continued communication suddenly lost interest for me. Not repetitive, but it felt like a formality to avoid an abrupt ending. 

 

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🎬 Tale-Telling: Told entirely through emails, WhatsApp, flyers, and police interview transcripts. 

🤓 Reader Role: Reading all the emails and texts, piecing everything together, and getting a sense of who is who and their intentions.

🗺️ World-Building: Surprisingly vibrant and easy to imagine

🔥 Fuel: Will all the little hiccups and issues be resolved? Will the passive-aggressive jealous members succeed in sabotage? Will the play go off without a hitch? Who died? Why and how? 

📖 Cred: Hyper-realistic with a sprinkling of satirical over-the-top

🚙 Journey: Like accessing someone’s computer and e-eavesdropping on the mini-drama that is their life.  

 

Content Heads-Up: Domestic abuse. Dead body. Alcoholism. Sabotage. Drugs. 

Rep: White and ambiguous British. Cisgender. Heterosexual. 

 

📚 Format: Everand Audio