8 best audiobooks of the year so far – Modern Mrs Darcy

I picked up this audiobook on a whim this spring and DEVOURED it; I couldn’t stop listening. Emotionally, the reading experience felt a lot like that of Finding Grace, but absent the shared theme of grief, the stories aren’t readalikes. I went in knowing next to nothing and didn’t mind that a bit: when the story opens, thirty-year-old Julia is speaking at the Los Angeles memorial service for her twenty-nine-year-old best friend and first love Gabe, who’s just died in an accident. The novel revolves around Julia processing her complicated grief. Going back and forth in time, we experience Julia and Gabe’s relationship from the beginning, when they met in Barcelona when his mother was her study abroad professor, up through the last time they saw each other weeks before his death. In the present timeline, we see Julia navigating her private grief over the loss of her celebrity friend, and traveling to London to befriend his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth under not quite honest pretenses. I enjoyed the exploration of complex relationships, but the textural details really made the book for me: the Barcelona and London specifics, the intricacies of Julia’s jewelry designs and business, the numerous references to art and artists, the food and decor at Elizabeth’s Shoreditch restaurant, Gabe’s songwriting process and touring practices—I ate it all up. This introspective first person tale was great on audio, as narrated by Emma Ladji. (When I read last week about Phoebe Bridgers’s recent pop-up concerts, my mind went immediately to this book, as fictional musician Gabe was beloved for doing something similar.) 9 hrs 17 mins. More info →