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A review by marshmallowbooks
Upside Down, Inside Out by Monica McInerney
3.0
I listened to the audiobook of this, and I have to say the narrator did a fantastic job keeping track of all the necessary accents: Irish, English, and Australian. That alone made it worth listening to.
This is a comedy-of-errors, of sorts. If nothing else, it certainly reinforced to me the fact that you should never, ever, ever tell a lie, not even a little white lie, to people that you like and want to be able to contact someday after meeting them in person. It turns out that little white lies need to be maintained with moderate gray lies, and it all becomes one big messy black lie from which you just might not be able to free yourself. Thankfully, in this story, the lies are a little endearing, and not the kind of lies that endanger lives or facilitate political scandals or anything like that. But either way, keeping up with the lies that are told turns out to be quite the task for these characters.
The only reason this got a rating of 3 stars rather than 4 was because I felt like the lies eventually got to be a bit too much, even as I completely understood they were the main foundation of the plot. It just got to the point that I was saying to myself, "Really? You didn't think that was the perfect opportunity to clear the air? You really felt like you had to make up another lie, instead?" And then, it escalated to, "If this wasn't a library copy of the audiobook and I didn't like listening to the accents so much, I would be rather tempted to simply throw this cd out the window and watch it shatter on the edge of the highway because this has just become TOO MUCH! Enough of this - let's wrap it up and stop creating more lies and loose ends and random things that are getting in the way of truth being told, and just all be on our merry way!" I mean, honestly, I was halfway through the very last cd and there were still lies and obstacles piling up on everything. I had to check the back of the case to see if there was a sequel, or I was missing a cd or something.
But other than that, a pretty fun read.
This is a comedy-of-errors, of sorts. If nothing else, it certainly reinforced to me the fact that you should never, ever, ever tell a lie, not even a little white lie, to people that you like and want to be able to contact someday after meeting them in person. It turns out that little white lies need to be maintained with moderate gray lies, and it all becomes one big messy black lie from which you just might not be able to free yourself. Thankfully, in this story, the lies are a little endearing, and not the kind of lies that endanger lives or facilitate political scandals or anything like that. But either way, keeping up with the lies that are told turns out to be quite the task for these characters.
The only reason this got a rating of 3 stars rather than 4 was because I felt like the lies eventually got to be a bit too much, even as I completely understood they were the main foundation of the plot. It just got to the point that I was saying to myself, "Really? You didn't think that was the perfect opportunity to clear the air? You really felt like you had to make up another lie, instead?" And then, it escalated to, "If this wasn't a library copy of the audiobook and I didn't like listening to the accents so much, I would be rather tempted to simply throw this cd out the window and watch it shatter on the edge of the highway because this has just become TOO MUCH! Enough of this - let's wrap it up and stop creating more lies and loose ends and random things that are getting in the way of truth being told, and just all be on our merry way!" I mean, honestly, I was halfway through the very last cd and there were still lies and obstacles piling up on everything. I had to check the back of the case to see if there was a sequel, or I was missing a cd or something.
But other than that, a pretty fun read.