Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined: A Novel

by Danielle Younge-Ullman Narrated by Phoebe Strole

Overview

Then
Ingrid traveled all over Europe with her opera star mother, Margot-Sophia. Life was beautiful and bright, and every day soared with music.

Now
Ingrid is on a summertime wilderness survival trek for at-risk teens: addicts, runaways, and her. She's fighting to survive crushing humiliations, physical challenges that push her to her limits, and mind games that threaten to break her.

Then
When the curtain fell on Margot-Sophia's singing career, they buried the past and settled into a small, painfully normal life. But Ingrid longed to let the music soar again. She wanted it so much that, for a while, nothing else mattered.

Now
Ingrid is never going to make it through this summer if she can't figure out why she's here, what happened to Margot-Sophia, and why the music really stopped.

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2017 - AudioFile

Narrator Phoebe Strole’s commendable vocal range underscores Ingrid’s story. At 17, Ingrid’s mother has sent her to a three-week wilderness camp for at-risk teens. Strole’s rendition of Ingrid’s sardonic letters home are pitch-perfect as Ingrid recounts her revulsion of survival experiences. Strole’s dramatization is just as strong in the other chapters, which describe Ingrid’s earlier years, and a different type of survival. When Ingrid was 6, her mother, whom she adored, was a renowned opera singer. But then, her mother’s career ends, and she becomes clinically depressed when Ingrid is 11. At that point, Strole’s emotional tone changes to show Isabel’s constant worry, continuous caretaking, and repression of her own talents. But she refuses to give up, and eventually Strole connects the story’s two threads and reveals Isabel’s developing grit and emotional maturity. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2017 - AudioFile

Narrator Phoebe Strole’s commendable vocal range underscores Ingrid’s story. At 17, Ingrid’s mother has sent her to a three-week wilderness camp for at-risk teens. Strole’s rendition of Ingrid’s sardonic letters home are pitch-perfect as Ingrid recounts her revulsion of survival experiences. Strole’s dramatization is just as strong in the other chapters, which describe Ingrid’s earlier years, and a different type of survival. When Ingrid was 6, her mother, whom she adored, was a renowned opera singer. But then, her mother’s career ends, and she becomes clinically depressed when Ingrid is 11. At that point, Strole’s emotional tone changes to show Isabel’s constant worry, continuous caretaking, and repression of her own talents. But she refuses to give up, and eventually Strole connects the story’s two threads and reveals Isabel’s developing grit and emotional maturity. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169382815
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	02/21/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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