Orphan Train: A Novel
By: Christina Baker Kline / Narrated By: Jessica Almasy, Suzanne Toren
Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
I found Vivian’s story moving; Molly’s? Not so muuuuuuch…!
But I guess I wound up chalking that up to the way Molly’s emotional state was written.
Molly is a teenager about to age-out of the foster care system, a system that’s run her through the wringer so much that she’s pretty much emotionally detached from all around her. This, I felt, kept me from feeling for her. She had anger in her, but it wasn’t until waaaaaay into the book that I felt she was capable of compassion or honest emotion.
Vivian’s story is emotional from the get-go. Orphaned when a tragic fire kills, ostensibly, most of her family, leaving her mother mad from loss and unable to care for her, Vivian is put on an orphan train, bound for other parts of the country where mostly younger children would be chosen as family members, and older children would be chosen to be farmhands or chambermaids of a sort.
She feels strongly, longs for freedom and love, makes one true friend in all the world (which, no spoilers, but was written well enough that the listener gets to experience a nice little slug to the gut). While the book switches between Vivian’s and Molly’s viewpoints, I found Vivian’s story immediately engaging. It wasn’t until Molly reeeeeeally takes an interest in Vivian’s history that I started warming towards her. And it all kinda rushes at the end of the story. We get one secret revealed close to the end then wham! another secret. Then Molly digs up information then wham! more information is uncovered. It goes soooooo quickly. Still, I liked the ending quite a bit.
As far as narration goes, I dunno why they even used Suzanne Toren, as she did only the itty bittiest of bits at the beginning for Vivian as the old lady she’s become. And while listening to Jessica Almasy’s voice for Vivian, I was struck by how awesome it would’ve been to have Toren telling the story as Almasy’s tones were sooooo young: Even Molly sounded rather young for her age and experience. Toooooo bad. And Almasy’s Irish accent slipped during recounting of the past and was nowhere to be heard in Vivian in the present, tho’ I’ll give it to her that the character had been in America a mighty long time by that point.
Not quite as “epic in scope” as I’d hoped it would be, Orphan Train was still a nice way to spend just over 8 hours. Some flawed narration, a bit of emotional detachment written in for Molly, but Vivian was a total winner, both as an orphan and as a spunky old woman who was ready to reclaim the past and take it into her future.
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