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Sympathy
Sympathy
Sympathy
Audiobook13 hours

Sympathy

Written by Olivia Sudjic

Narrated by Gemma Dawson

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

()

About this audiobook

At twenty-three, Alice Hare leaves England for New York. Blinded by the city lights, Alice becomes fixated on Mizuko Himura, a Japanese writer living in New York, whose life story has strange parallels to her own and whom she believes is her "internet twin." What seems to Mizuko like a chance encounter with Alice is anything but-after all, in the age of connectivity, nothing is coincidence. Their subsequent relationship is doomed from the outset, exposing a tangle of lies and sexual encounters as three families across the globe collide, and the most ancient of questions-where do we come from-is answered just by searching online.

In its heady evocation of everything from Haruki Murakami to Patricia Highsmith to Edith Wharton, Sympathy is utterly original-a thrilling tale of obsession, doubling, blood ties, and our tormented efforts to connect in the digital age.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 4, 2017
ISBN9781681684802
Author

Olivia Sudjic

OLIVIA SUDJIC was born in London in 1988. She studied English literature at Cambridge University, where she was awarded the E. G. Harwood English Prize and made a Bateman Scholar. She’s written for publications including Elle, Sunday Times' Style, and the Observer, among others. She lives in London and started writing her first novel, Sympathy, in 2014.

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Reviews for Sympathy

Rating: 3.03125003125 out of 5 stars
3/5

32 ratings9 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read it for the Lesbian Book group. We all agreed, that it was NOT a lesbian book. Most people did not like it, and disliked all the characters. I wasn't sure, going into the group, how I felt about it. I knew that I didn't exactly like it, the characters were not very likeable, and the book somewhat creeped me out and interfered with my sleep Monday night (when I finished it, late at night, because I wanted it read for the book group.) The book centers around a young woman, Alice Hare, who is dealing with a lot of complicated identity issues and who is very unconnected to other people. Through the internet, she develops a stalker-ish relationship with a Japanese woman writer, Mizuko. Alice does some really not-good things in pursuit of this relationship. In the end, I decided that it was a good book. Lots of room for thought, and I figured anything that made me feel that uncomfortable, must have had some depth. The book does have a non-linear and sometimes repetitive format. That bothered some people, I thought it was a reflection of how Alice moved through the world, and so I was OK with it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As an experiment, I'm going to share my thoughts on this book (as of page 80 in my reading progress) in lieu of a formal review:

    So far in this book, I’m not sure what’s happening when. I’m about 80 pages in and I can tell it is quite the deep dive. Sudjic is dealing unabashedly with whatever subject comes across her psyche in the course of this story that feels as surreal as it does painfully biographical. But it is fiction, treading on undergirding themes of obsession and our modern-day digital lives. It’s making me question other new writing I’ve read. Why do other books so nonchalantly gloss over the backlit details of our increasingly virtual world? Why don’t other authors even seem to sense the impending tsunami of virtual reality as it sends tremors shivering up to our coastline?

    For what it’s worth, the unflinching and deft metaphor that Sudjic is weaving throughout this story is giving me pause. Swiping and tapping and pressing into squares of reality. It’s more than pause that it’s giving me, it’s shivers, and a sneaking, lurking fear is being shaped into existence. I think if I don’t make at least some effort to separate myself from the online world, I’m doomed to succumb to it, to fall into the pit that is filled with the failures of my generation. I want to be separate from the ubiquity of the Internet somehow. I want to exist as a self, an identity apart from that which is created and molded and crafted with pixellated detail online. I want to live in touching, tasting, breathing reality, not under the light of an artificial apple, glowing to the rhythm of false life.

    Right, so maybe I’m not thinking about the book. But the book is making me think about life. I hesitate to keep reading, because I know it will stretch me in a way that is painfully uncomfortable. But then, I know she wrote it on purpose this way. I want that. I want to feel the crushing weight of Sudjic’s world through the eyes of her broken, unreliable narrator. I want to delve into her world because the truth is, it’s my world, too.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I received a free copy of this audio book in exchange for a HONEST review. Keep in mind that my review is my OPINION...Sympathy by Olivia SudjicAudio Book VersionRead by Gemma DawsonStory/AuthorIf you find the "official" description of this book/audio book you will find the following:"An electrifying debut novel of obsessive love, family secrets, and the dangers of living our lives online. In its heady evocation of everything from Haruki Murakami to Patricia Highsmith to Edith Wharton, Sympathy is utterly original—a thrilling tale of obsession, doubling, blood ties, and our tormented efforts to connect in the digital age."The "official" description by the publisher (above) makes it sound like the next greatest author has just been discovered and that the book might be worthy of the four awards it won (all from low to mid grade magazines). Unfortunately my excitement for the book was crushed within the first hour of listening and my belief in the fact that "experts" have no idea what good fiction is was thoroughly reinforced.The "official" description compares Ms. Sudjic's work to that of Murakami Haruki (author of 1Q84, Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood). HAH!!! Sorry, couldn't help that. I will say that the two writer's styles do have ONE thing in common,they both use WORDS in their books. Aside from that, Ms. Sudjic's name should NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence with Murakami unless someone is telling a joke about the book's "official" description. Keep in mind that this is not an insult for Ms. Sudjic. Few writers can even consider themselves close to Murakami. It is more of an INSULT to the publisher for lying to the public with these misleading statements.The truth about the story, in my opinion (and that of many other readers from what I have seen of reviews) is that the story is flat and boring. It has no twists, turns, speed bumps or thrills. It goes from point A to B following an uninteresting girl who is a burden to just about everyone she meets and then blames everything on them. She forces he way into people's lives and then begins to obsess over the negative feelings and events that happen to her.The characters are lifeless and boring. They do VERY little of interest. I think I was actually "fully" listening in maybe three parts (20 minutes) of the whole 13 hour ordeal. This was like listening to an autobiography about a person who has done nothing and accomplished nothing (aside from annoying everyone) yet feels like the world owes them everything and that their reality should be forced on everyone else. EXTREMELY ANNOYING to listen to. I would have stopped listening to this within the first hour but I did PROMISE to write an HONEST review in exchange for a copy of this audio book...so I forced myself through it.Reader/PerformanceWell, I will say that they picked the write reader for this book. I'm not sure if she purposely morphed her voice to match the same "tone"of this book, but I could imagine this extremely uninteresting girl (named Alice) sounding exactly like the reader (arrogant and annoying). BRAVO.OVERALLContrary to what the "official" description states, this book was NOT electrifying, NOT thrilling and definitely NOT "utterly original". At best it was a below average story that happened to find some notoriety among so-called "experts" but as usual falls short where it matters...with the readers. I would like to STRESS that I am in no way trying to bash Ms. Sudjic...writing a novel is hard and getting people to notice it is even harder but for this work to get as much "professional" attention as it has, it needs to be MUCH MUCH MUCH better than this (all that "expert" attention tends to paint targets on things).Have SYMPATHY on yourself...skip this and find something else to read.1 out of 5 Stars.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Badly developed characters with very little to encourage the reader to like them or even want to be involved with them. Definitely not a book I would recommend.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I did not enjoy this book. the main character is a cyber-stalker. The characters are confusing and not well-developed. I did not care about what happened to any of them. I listened to this book on CD. I found it boring. The characters are obsessed with on-line information and fantasy based on this information. I would not recommend wasting your time on this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An adopted British girl travels to New York to visit an ailing grandmother. She gets involved with helping a friend of her grandmother's to set up a genealogy account. I listened to the audio book on cd and enjoyed the reader's British voice, but her American and Japanese? accents were off a little. The grandmother and the object of the main characters obsession were given the same voice. This was a very long story that provided many details. I did not care for Mizuko's character. I expected her, as a professor, to be more intelligent than she was written.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I listen to books while I travel for work. Sometimes flying and sometimes driving. I drive long hours by myself and love to listen to books rather than the radio. I had to listed to this one on the plane. It was so slow paced I thought I would fall asleep behind the wheel. I actually did enjoy it on the plane as I could just relax, close my eyes and listen.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An original debut novel that examines social media, obsession, & stalking while forcing the reader to examine their own attitudes about their own social media accounts. At times the novel feels overwritten & confusing due to jumps in the narrative.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I listened to this book as an audio book. The story is complex and it was a little difficult to follow on audio sometimes. I really enjoyed the book. I had to re-listen occasionally to certain parts of the book because there is so much language in the passages that I would get lost. I recommend this book for people who love deep stories with lots of twists and turns and descriptive language!