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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Slow paced. The interest is in the details.
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
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:
Yes
You know when you read a book and you feel like it was written for you? Like specifically for you? This. This book was written for me :)
Editing after reading other reviews - it has been downvoted for all the things people hoped/wished it would be but at no point did the author claim it was, which I feel is unfair. No, it's not a YA book. No it's not the Raven Cycle. No, it's not a romance novel. Yes, there are many descriptive parts. I'm guessing those folks that complained it is too slow are slow readers. I thought it was perfect pacing, even slowed myself down in parts because the writing was so luscious and I knew I'd only get to read it for the first time once.
Editing after reading other reviews - it has been downvoted for all the things people hoped/wished it would be but at no point did the author claim it was, which I feel is unfair. No, it's not a YA book. No it's not the Raven Cycle. No, it's not a romance novel. Yes, there are many descriptive parts. I'm guessing those folks that complained it is too slow are slow readers. I thought it was perfect pacing, even slowed myself down in parts because the writing was so luscious and I knew I'd only get to read it for the first time once.
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
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
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
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:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, War
Minor: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Alcohol, Classism, Deportation
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I’m kinda disappointed because I expected a lot more based on The Raven Cycle, but I might need another read to really see if I didn’t like it. I was bored for most of the book, but the ending started to pull me in.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
ᯓ★ 2 stars ★ᯓ
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
⋮ read july 2025
⋮ format: e-book
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
「what worked」
Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is great, and I think she truly does have a way with words. Sometimes, her repetitive descriptions or “bingo phrases” (Bingo phrase, a.k.a. she’d reference them every two or three chapters) got a bit tiring to read. However, she’d also have moments where I just had to stop, highlight, and add a note to some paragraphs/quotes because Stiefvater is capable of writing well and, when she does, one must stop and admire an artist at her craft.
「what didn’t work」
Everything else. No, seriously.
This is a historical fiction story, but it doesn’t even work well as one. I think fans of the genre would be disappointed in this. The book has some magical realism, but it is sparsely explained or used. The entire magical concept is murky and relies on readers to trust the convenience, so fans of the fantasy or magical realism genres may be equally disappointed. There are also underlying themes of classism, racism, and duty vs morals. However, I just don’t think the book did anything genuine with those themes. The Listeners also suffers from extremely slow pacing, which further highlights its shortcomings as a book.
For me, an egregiously slow-paced book can work if 1) the characters are super compelling and/or 2) the slow plot still feels purposeful, like it’s taking the reader somewhere. This book did not have either. The characters feel flat and forgettable. When you continue to introduce side characters after side characters only to completely forget about 99% of them, I find myself questioning the point of it all. The main perspectives—June and Tucker—feel so distant and uninteresting. I really should add another character to that “main perspectives” list, but—as I’ll talk about later—that character was handled so poorly, I hesitate to consider her more than a side character. The slow plot also haplessly meandered and crawled—definitely wouldn’t describe it as a purposeful stride. So many pages of just…nothing because it was all so unimportant and forgettable in the end.
There’s a romance aspect to this, but it felt very rushed and underdeveloped. For a majority of the book, June is pining after one terribly annoying and juvenile man (who’s hardly in the book, yet we had to read so many paragraphs of June’s flashbacks and thoughts about him, he might as well have been there the whole time), so it’s hard to understand how she has feelings for this other mediocre man after such few interactions of note. Their romance didn’t feel genuine at all; for the most part, I didn’t even sense a romantic plot line until over halfway into the book, when the gears were suddenly switched. We were somehow supposed to think these two characters liked each other when they barely even interacted. Even the most die-hard fans of the slow-burn and "enemies-to-lovers" tropes would be disappointed in this.
This book also fails to treat its disabled characters with any respect. There’s a child character, Hannelore, who is portrayed with stereotypical autistic traits (seriously, I wondered if the author found a little online checklist and built her character while checking off stuff from the checklist), and Hannelore barely has an existence outside of what she represents to June, which was a chance for June to “rescue” her younger self—an innocent child—since June saw so much of herself in Hannelore. I think Hannelore deserved to be more fleshed out as a character instead of just existing as a convenient plot device for June and co. to save.
Lastly, it was extra hard for me to find a reason to connect with this book and its subject matter due to the current political and social climate. Sorry, but if you’re going to write a book about a bunch of Nazis staying at a luxury hotel only to do very, very little to denounce said Nazis…it’s certainly a choice. We’re told the staff doesn’t want to be serving the Nazis. We’re told how each staff member has been affected by the war. Yet, besides one or two times, it’s hard to see that internal struggle the staff has (duty vs morals) since it’s immediately brushed away when it is mentioned, then we read pages and pages of them serving the Nazis with top-notch service. I get it—the hotel and its staff are great and very competent at their jobs, but at least do something real instead of shooing away difficult conversations, author.
「overall」
The Listeners feels like a story that ambles on with very little purpose or inspiration. The characters made no impact, the plot lines were half-hearted, and the intended(?) commentary was contrived.
In my reviews, I usually try to find and mention a demographic of readers that would like a book, but I struggle to do so right now. I think The Listeners’s overt ambitiousness to be so much all at once is the reason why I’m stumped in figuring out who this book would work for. I feel like it’s not exactly a satisfying genre read for readers of any of the genres it attempted. I guess… if you’re a massive Stiefvater fan, I’d recommend it.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
⋮ read july 2025
⋮ format: e-book
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
「what worked」
Maggie Stiefvater’s prose is great, and I think she truly does have a way with words. Sometimes, her repetitive descriptions or “bingo phrases” (Bingo phrase, a.k.a. she’d reference them every two or three chapters) got a bit tiring to read. However, she’d also have moments where I just had to stop, highlight, and add a note to some paragraphs/quotes because Stiefvater is capable of writing well and, when she does, one must stop and admire an artist at her craft.
「what didn’t work」
Everything else. No, seriously.
This is a historical fiction story, but it doesn’t even work well as one. I think fans of the genre would be disappointed in this. The book has some magical realism, but it is sparsely explained or used. The entire magical concept is murky and relies on readers to trust the convenience, so fans of the fantasy or magical realism genres may be equally disappointed. There are also underlying themes of classism, racism, and duty vs morals. However, I just don’t think the book did anything genuine with those themes. The Listeners also suffers from extremely slow pacing, which further highlights its shortcomings as a book.
For me, an egregiously slow-paced book can work if 1) the characters are super compelling and/or 2) the slow plot still feels purposeful, like it’s taking the reader somewhere. This book did not have either. The characters feel flat and forgettable. When you continue to introduce side characters after side characters only to completely forget about 99% of them, I find myself questioning the point of it all. The main perspectives—June and Tucker—feel so distant and uninteresting. I really should add another character to that “main perspectives” list, but—as I’ll talk about later—that character was handled so poorly, I hesitate to consider her more than a side character. The slow plot also haplessly meandered and crawled—definitely wouldn’t describe it as a purposeful stride. So many pages of just…nothing because it was all so unimportant and forgettable in the end.
There’s a romance aspect to this, but it felt very rushed and underdeveloped. For a majority of the book, June is pining after one terribly annoying and juvenile man (who’s hardly in the book, yet we had to read so many paragraphs of June’s flashbacks and thoughts about him, he might as well have been there the whole time), so it’s hard to understand how she has feelings for this other mediocre man after such few interactions of note. Their romance didn’t feel genuine at all; for the most part, I didn’t even sense a romantic plot line until over halfway into the book, when the gears were suddenly switched. We were somehow supposed to think these two characters liked each other when they barely even interacted. Even the most die-hard fans of the slow-burn and "enemies-to-lovers" tropes would be disappointed in this.
This book also fails to treat its disabled characters with any respect. There’s a child character, Hannelore, who is portrayed with stereotypical autistic traits (seriously, I wondered if the author found a little online checklist and built her character while checking off stuff from the checklist), and Hannelore barely has an existence outside of what she represents to June, which was a chance for June to “rescue” her younger self—an innocent child—since June saw so much of herself in Hannelore. I think Hannelore deserved to be more fleshed out as a character instead of just existing as a convenient plot device for June and co. to save.
Lastly, it was extra hard for me to find a reason to connect with this book and its subject matter due to the current political and social climate. Sorry, but if you’re going to write a book about a bunch of Nazis staying at a luxury hotel only to do very, very little to denounce said Nazis…it’s certainly a choice. We’re told the staff doesn’t want to be serving the Nazis. We’re told how each staff member has been affected by the war. Yet, besides one or two times, it’s hard to see that internal struggle the staff has (duty vs morals) since it’s immediately brushed away when it is mentioned, then we read pages and pages of them serving the Nazis with top-notch service. I get it—the hotel and its staff are great and very competent at their jobs, but at least do something real instead of shooing away difficult conversations, author.
「overall」
The Listeners feels like a story that ambles on with very little purpose or inspiration. The characters made no impact, the plot lines were half-hearted, and the intended(?) commentary was contrived.
In my reviews, I usually try to find and mention a demographic of readers that would like a book, but I struggle to do so right now. I think The Listeners’s overt ambitiousness to be so much all at once is the reason why I’m stumped in figuring out who this book would work for. I feel like it’s not exactly a satisfying genre read for readers of any of the genres it attempted. I guess… if you’re a massive Stiefvater fan, I’d recommend it.