The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay

I listened to the unabridged audio version of The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay and narrated by Simon Vance this past week. Listening time for The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay is 10 hours, 3 minutes.

After listening to The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay last month and not enjoying it very much, I decided to listen to another one of her others novels on compact disc. I wanted to L-O-V-E The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay based on the summary alone, but this novel quite frankly didn't live up its potential.

The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay is definitely a multi-layered novel that interweaves the past and the present throughout the novel itself. The primary focus of The Other Story is on the main character, Nicholas Duhamel and how he became a famous author by the age of 29, how he has been dealing with the success of fame and family secrets.

I found Nicholas Duhamel to be an immature and unlikable main character. Fame has inflated his ego and turned him into a media whore, as he routinely spends time giving interviews, checking/posting to his Facebook page, Twitter, etc. Nicholas also seems to need/crave the attention of the his fans at large... If someone doesn't recognize who Nicholas is, he seems to be insecure about it. Nicholas has put off writing his next novel, because he doesn't know what to write about... But everyone thinks he's busy writing his next novel as that's what he's lead them to believe.

The bulk of The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay takes place at a luxury resort in Italy where Nicholas Duhamel's life seems to finally fall apart. I frankly don't feel sorry for him at this point as he did it to himself. 

Alas, fate intervenes in an all too convenient fashion by the end of The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay when a large cruise ship comes to close to the Italian luxury resort and crashes... This plot twist sounded way to much like the Costa Concordia disaster of 2012. Nicholas suddenly transforms his outlook and demeanor after  just a few hours of helping to rescue some of the victims of the cruise ship disaster. Nicholas even finds inspiration for his next novel after the tragic death of one of the victims. 

A lot of other things happen in this novel, but I found The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay to be too slow for my taste and the main character so unlikable, that it was difficult to swallow or even care about the story or how/why the main character got there.

As far as the narration goes, I think Simon Vance is an excellent narrator. However, I didn't think he was the right narrator for The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay. Simon Vance's voice/narration seems much too mature for the main character of Nicholas Duhamel... Nicholas Duhamel is a young, Frenchman of 29 years old and immature. Long story short, I think a narrator with a younger sounding and more carefree voice would have been more suitable for this audiobook.

The following is a plot summary for The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay from Audible:

Vacationing at a luxurious Tuscan island resort, Nicolas Duhamel is hopeful that the ghosts of his past have finally been put to rest.… He's now a best-selling author, but when he was 24 years old, he stumbled upon a troubling secret about his family - a secret that was carefully concealed. In shock, Nicholas embarked on a journey to uncover the truth that took him from the Basque coast to St. Petersburg - but the answers wouldn’t come easily.

In the process of digging into his past, something else happened. Nicolas began writing a novel that was met with phenomenal success, skyrocketing him to literary fame whether he was ready for it or not - and convincing him that he had put his family’s history firmly behind him. But now, years later, Nicolas must reexamine everything he thought he knew, as he learns that, however deeply buried, the secrets of the past always find a way out.

Layered and beautifully written, Tatiana de Rosnay's The Other Story is a reflection on identity, the process of being a writer, and the repercussions of generations-old decisions as they echo into the present and shape the future.

I am giving The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay a rating of 2 stars out of 5 stars as there were a few scenes that were intriguing/good... But mostly, The Other Story by Tatiana de Rosnay wasn't my kind of read.

Until my next post, happy reading!