The One-in-a-Million Boy
By: Monica Wood / Narrated By: Chris Andrew Ciulla
Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
Well done! Quite simply oh so well done!
This review is for the originally-released, not the more recent Booktrack, edition of The One-in-a-Million Boy, so I canNOT tell ya if the newer production is all Huzzah-ish… As a matter of fact? I looooathe interjected musical soundtracks cuz I do NOT like being told how to feel. So there’s that.
That outta the way? Nobody told me how to feel with this li’l gem of an audiobook: The writing did that for me. The narration did that for me.
And while I didn’t Ugly Cry, m’ heart did indeed break a time or two.
At the time I bought this audiobook (Cheap via the WhisperSync deals), I’d chosen it solely based upon the charming cover and the title. Hey! Back then you could do that and not feel like you wasted money on a wretched tale. Nope, I didn’t choose by the Publisher’s Summary which is all well and good because I juuust read it, and dude! is it lacking, or what? Because, you see, the story is sooo much more than Loser Dad Helps Old Lady Learn To Drive, Picking Up Where Dead Son Left Off.
Deadbeat Musician Dad, Quinn Porter, shows up to Ona’s house. Ona is a 104-year old wry and spry and crotchety woman who hails eeeeons ago from Lithuania, and she’s developed a fondness for whom we never get a name for: The little boy, the odd little boy who groups things in 10s and who organizes, that 11-year old boy who formats and asks questions, who wants to know about the birds that come to Ona’s feeders so he can earn THAT particular Scout Badge, the anxious and emotionally-offbeat boy who bounces and jumps when he starts making connections, too excited to maintain control.
The little boy who died, leaving his mother to force the father who was never there for them to finish the chores for Ona as part of his Boy Scout Badge work. Quinn just shows up, with seven weeks to tackle of Ona’s chores, it’s a temporary gig for him, just as his Life has been a series of Temporary Gigs, such as being a husband to Belle; being a father to (let’s call him) Boy; jamming with old friends who are now depressed Grownups trying to recapture their early days when they were brimming with music and enthusiasm and dedication; making ends meet so he can pay paltry rent, continuing to make child support payments for a Boy who is dead.
He’s there; he isn’t.
And noooo, this could sooo be a story wherein all wraps up in a bow, Quinn growing up, becoming friends lickety-split with Ona, doing all that is well and good and so very right. This could kinda be one of those stories where plot takes over choices, where sweet covers mean easy answers, where the author’s Wannas are far beyond the author’s Writing Skills.
But author Monica Wood takes her time unfolding things (Indeed, I read many a review that said it was too long and lost its way), fleshing out experiences of each of the characters, showing just how broken they are by Life, by Choices, by Grief, by Lost Memories, Lost Chances. They’re all looking back and wondering how they’re supposed to go forward now that the worst has happened. Quinn broke Belle many a time, and so he does penance out of true love for her, supporting her, knowing her, being the well-deserved whipping boy to her anguish, easing her way through this new life that is Life Without My Son. It’s heartbreaking; it’s slow; it’s painfully well-written.
Ona has her own journey as well, growing old is not for the weak, and tho’ she’s crusty and fraught with dead-on certainty, her limitations, her weaknesses soon become apparent to her. She clings to the dreams that Boy inspired in her, thinking that, now that he’s gone, what will carry her? These people keep coming into her life, making her love them, even need them, and then? As with everything in life: Change. Departures. No, no promises were given, but her heart keeps betraying her, coming alive with joy and hope and even laughter and fun.
At first I wasn’t sure I’d be liking Chris Ciulla’s narration; he has flat tones for the text, and when Ona first speaks (As Boy records her Life Story into his trusty cassette recorder), I thought his choice of voices for Ona was a trifle masculine and a bit of a caricature. But then I just stopped with being all judge-y, kinda because the writing, the exposure bit by itty bit of the characters and their lives, of their memories and actions, of their flailing and struggling to stay afloat, was just so very compelling. And for dialogue (Uhm, once I got beyond that initial knee-jerk: That’s-not-how-I’m-picturing-them! judge-y reaction), for the heartbreak? For how the characters start unfolding into just how their lives COULD be? Oh my, Ciulla was spot-on. My hats off to a narration that had me, not sobbing, but most certainly with tears rolling down m’ face.
Just beautiful, gorgeous ending where all that Boy might’ve been collides with who he was at that most tragic of moments, where there’s appreciation, a failing heart, a world of such glory around him. Touching, beautifully written, narrated with such wonder and joy.
Okay… maybe I diiiiiid Ugly Cry…
So there’s that as well.
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