Euphoria by Lily King
Narrator: Simon Vance, Xe Sands
Published by Blackstone Audiobooks
Publication Date June 3rd 2014
Source: Library
Genres: Historical Fiction
Goodreads
Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is the story of three young, gifted anthropologists of the 1930s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives.
Do you remember when Elaine Benes saw The English Patient? Well, that is how I felt about Euphoria by Lily King. it was long, boring and “how bout it sucked.”
I typically like books that have romance and were based on or inspired by real persons and events. Although, like Lee Daniels’ The Butler “inspired by Margaret Mead” was used loosely.
There is a relationship between Nell (Our Margaret Mead) and a Count Laszlo de Almásy-like character. This encounter felt forced, unnatural and considering this was a focal point of the book was extraordinarily lackluster.
There is also a small fling between Nell and another woman. I wasn’t sure what the point of this was. It seemed irrelevant to the story. To me, it appeared the author was aiming for a Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore pottery moment only to fail miserably. Instead, it was as sexy as Miley Cyrus with a foam finger — ew. It just didn’t work.
I wish I could say the writing and narration were good but the plot was so drawn out that it was hard to focus and Simon Vance and Xe Sands’ droning voices did not help matters.
Unfortunately, Lily King’s novel was a bust for me and would have prefered “Sack Lunch”.
Ooh. Doesn’t sound good. I have been on the fence about this one since before it came out. I have seen a lot of mixed reviews, and many of them, like yours, mention things that would be difficult for me to get past.
There were a myriad of reasons why the book just didn’t work for me. Besides the sexual aspect (which was partucularly hard for me to get over) was the fact that other novelists, such as Nancy Horan and Melanie Benjamin have conquered the same idea and were better executed. I was sad to see this flop though because it held promise at the start.