Reviews - The Listeners | The StoryGraph

1.02k reviews for:

The Listeners

Maggie Stiefvater

3.96 AVERAGE

lalilureads's review against another edition

3.5

mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I don’t really know how I feel about this book yet. I had a strange experience reading it where I really enjoyed myself whenever I actually sat down to read it but I rarely felt myself longing to read it, so it took me forever to finish.
First and foremost, Maggie Stiefvater has a way with words that I will always always always enjoy and this book really made me want to read all of her books now. There is just something about her writing style that’s just so for me. I cannot even really put my finger on exactly what it is, I just I love it. The same thing goes for her settings and the atmosphere she builds through them. The Avalon felt like a real place to me and I could just feel the luxurious vibe as if I were there while reading this book. I also enjoyed June as a character (and lowkey wish she had been the only POV character) and loved following her around. I think this is also because I enjoy reading about people who are very dedicated to their craft/job and this is exactly what June is like. This book was also clearly very well-researched. All of this combined made this reading experience a pleasant one but I cannot ignore that there were also very noticeable issues.

Character motivation, a goal, what were they? It appeared that for both of the major POV characters, both just sort of wanted to get through this mess so that they could return to their lives before. “Enduring” is not nessecarily a very active goal and I think this was the reason I didn’t feel like picking the book up as much. In the author’s note, Maggie Stiefvater said she had so many things she wanted to include from her research that she had to be picky and frankly, that made sense to me bc this book genuinely just feels like a bunch of little events strung together. When there is no big “x wants to reach y before z or else a happens,” stories tend to feel a bit lacklustre to me and this book was not character-driven enough for the mcs to carry it (I really didn’t care for Tucker). In the final 100 pages, it finally felt like the characters had a grand mission to complete which was my favourite part of the book… until it kind of fell apart?? Maybe I missed some big subtext or zoned out during crucial paragraphs but June’s decision towards the end came out of nowhere for me.

I’m talking particularly about giving up the Avalon. I get that she had a codependent relationship with the place and it wasn’t the healthiest but I never expected her to destroy it at any point in the book, especially since her main motivation was basically “just get through this rough time so everything could go back to normal”. Again, maybe it was a me-issue and I wasn’t reading attentively enough but that caught me off-guard. It just seemed like the typical “woman gives up career for a man”-plot that i was nooot expecting and annoyed me a lot.

So yea, on one hand this is the book that made me want to pick up the entire rest of Stiefvater’s books, on the other hand I was a little lost and took forever to read the book because I never had the motivation to read it. But did I enjoy reading it? Yes.

k_sanam's review against another edition

4.5

emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

btaylorb's review

4.75

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I’ve loved Maggie Stiefvater’s writing for a few years now but I was feeling cautious about this book that, based on the marketing copy, sounded like I was about to be made to feel sympathy for some Nazis. And while those characters are distinct and given humanity and complexity, the writing also never let me forget what they represent, and I admire that delicate balance.
I love when a historical narrative can find the intersection of a major historic event with a more mundane aspect of life at the time so that you can understand the day to day of impact that event might have had on average people. That’s something I think this book does really well. Also, as someone who tuned out a lot of high school WWII history lectures that downplayed things like the Holocaust in favor of battle minutiae, I appreciate the use of a lesser known detail about diplomatic relations as the setup for the plot.
The “wondrous” elements - the mysterious nature of the springs and the sweet water - untangle very gradually and with a subtlety that is both frustrating and delightful. (I hesitate to use the word “magical” because it’s never used in the book)
My one criticism is, oddly, the sex. Maybe I still associate Stiefvater’s writing with YA and so the inclusion of very adult content felt jarring. To be clear, there is no explicit on-page sex, but there are frank mentions of past sexual encounters and hints at future sex and a little bit of on-page foreplay. Overall I think the degree of sexual content fit the tone of the novel, but it also left me a little wide-eyed. My rating might change depending on my feelings. 😅

jpsbooks's review

4.25

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

mmbay's review

4.0

An interesting perspective on WWII, what happens to the diplomats stranded when war breaks out, add in a luxury mountain resort, a love triangle and magical water and you’ve got a good story.