The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger

Audio Book version

Book Blurb:

Twenty-nine-year-old Sophie Diehl is happy toiling away as a criminal law associate at an old line New England firm where she very much appreciates that most of her clients are behind bars. Everyone at Traynor, Hand knows she abhors face-to-face contact, but one weekend, with all the big partners away, Sophie must handle the intake interview for the daughter of the firm’s most important client. After eighteen years of marriage, Mayflower descendant Mia Meiklejohn Durkheim has just been served divorce papers in a humiliating scene at the popular local restaurant, Go Lightly’s. She is locked and loaded to fight her eminent and ambitious husband, Dr. Daniel Durkheim, Chief of the Department of Pediatric Oncology, for custody of their ten-year-old daughter Jane–and she also burns to take him down a peg. Sophie warns Mia that she’s never handled a divorce case before, but Mia can’t be put off. As she so disarmingly puts it: It’s her first divorce, too.

My Review: 2 stars

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So maybe this wasn’t the best book to listen to on CD. I borrowed it from the library for the car ride to drive up and back from Michigan for a college drop off. I haven’t had much luck with audio books but I refuse to give up. I thought having varying voices and it having an epistolary style would make it easy to follow along and enjoy. Well, half of that was true. Each character had it’s own voice which was great however the combination of epistolary writing and so many legal documents made it flat out boring. Listening to the monotony of monetary distributions every time a change was made and the repetition of the addresses in each letter got exhausting. I finished all eleven discs and I must say, the plot was truly the title…The Divorce Papers. I learned a lot about the process of divorce, but I imagine, for those who’ve been through divorce will hate this book. The author tried to instill diversion by having the main protagonist deal with failed romantic escapades and come to terms with her own parent’s divorce, but for me, it was unsuccessful. Sadly, I didn’t care enough about her or her life.

I must say, I was attracted to this book after it getting quite good hype from the publisher and indie booksellers; I don’t get it. I still gave it two stars because perhaps reading it would’ve been better for me.