How the Penguins Saved Veronica
By: Hazel Prior / Narrated By: Helen Lloyd, Andrew Fallaize, Mandy Williams
Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
A sweet and light Listen, a really light Listen, oh SUCH a light Listen; have I mentioned that this is the epitome of Light Listening???
Our little audiobook club has a tendency of taking on heavy Listens, stuff regarding grief, or data, or racial inequality (And if we include Baldwin’s Another Country we can add jaded and promiscuous sex committed as acts of outright HATRED… Just sayin’…). So when we recently got to my turn to pick, I chose How the Penguins Saved Veronica, an audiobook I’d snapped up as a New Release cuz the cover and premise were so danged cuuuute. I did NOT want to think; I just wanted sweetness and light.
And boy is that what I got!
Which is not to say that it was an unfortunate Listen, not by a long shot. We each liked it, it’s just that we were sore disappointed by how it COULD’ve gone into depth a MULtitude of times but, alas, did not.
Veronica is a crotchety and domineering ol’ lady, spending her time alone and with only her housekeeper as company. That she’s loaded, wealthy like crazy, brings her no delight; she’s stuck with her memories and her aging self. But a series of documentaries on penguins makes her light up: THERE’S where she can do some good; there’s where she can leave her money; and there’s where she WILL go!
That the scientists way out in the icy middle of nowhere don’t want her is of no import to her. After a tense and disappointing meeting with a grandson she never knew she had (Her son was given up for adoption, and he had a son), she’s off to join the penguins.
We meet the researchers, and they’re all delightfully quirky and/or crotchety in their own right. Here’s where I felt my first pang of disappointment: We could’ve gotten more of who these people were, their backgrounds which were only alluded to, their aspirations, just maybe even a tad more in dialogue. Alas, ‘twas not to be. Then we’re off to Veronica getting to know the penguins, getting to care for them. And if the researchers (Well, mostly just the male ones) were peeved before? Well, Veronica stepping in and saving an orphaned penguin has them MOST irate as their vow is to NEVER interfere with Nature but to merely document it.
Tsk, tsk. Too bad. The little orphan is soon dubbed Patrick (The name of her pot-smoking and lazy layabout grandson), and he becomes the absolutely most aDORable little character that I loved hearing about. Soon Veronica, she of the frozen heart, feels her heart melting (And I kid you not; author Hazel Prior literally says her heart is melting, kinda like we’re all too dumb to get it from the story…). UnFORtunately, this is all short lived as an accident leaves Veronica abed and at Death’s Door.
Enter Patrick. After their meeting, he too didn’t want to have anything to do with his grandmother, but she’d left him a box that had her locked away diaries in it. Reading them has made him feel closer to her, made him start feeling that maybe he does have family (His father abandoned the family and his mother died broken and using drugs). In the diaries is the touching story of Veronica’s life during WWII, of her first and only true love for an Italian POW (The story of which was my absolute favorite part of the book!). And again? Prior sooo COULD’ve gone even deeper with the story but chose to stick with light and breezy.
Sometimes the writing is lazy, like the aforementioned TELLing us of a heart melting, and each of the characters makes sudden and instantaneous personal advances and are suddenly willing to take daring leaps of faith. Plus, as my Mom said: You could see where it was all going to end pretty much from the very first page.
Okay, enough of my whimpering of what I WISHED it could’ve been, and let me just say that this is a divinely sweet tale, and I loved that Ending You Could See From A Mile Away. Veronica leaves caveats with what she decides to do with her money, and I found it all so very endearing. Add to that, topnotch performances by each of the narrators, Helen Lloyd in particular, and this was a charmer of a Listen, not much depth, but a definite boost to the spirits during these dark times of ours.
Plus? Isn’t the cover to die for? How could I NOT chuck a credit at this one?!
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