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    Close Your Eyes: A Novel
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    Close Your Eyes: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Close Your Eyes: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    Close Your Eyes: A Novel

    Written by Amanda Eyre Ward

    Narrated by Meera Simhan and Phoebe Zimmermann

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In Close Your Eyes, the author of the bestselling How to Be Lost spins another mesmerizing tale of buried family secrets.

    For most of her life, Lauren Mahdian has been certain of two things: that her mother is dead, and that her father is a murderer.

    Before the horrific tragedy, Lauren led a sheltered life in a wealthy corner of America, in a town outside Manhattan on the banks of Long Island Sound, a haven of luxurious homes, manicured lawns, and seemingly perfect families. Here Lauren and her older brother, Alex, thought they were safe.

    But one morning, six-year-old Lauren and eight-year-old Alex awoke after a night spent in their tree house to discover their mother's body and their beloved father arrested for the murder.

    Years later, Lauren is surrounded by uncertainty. Her one constant is Alex, always her protector, still trying to understand the unraveling of his idyllic childhood. But Lauren feels even more alone when Alex reveals that he's been in contact over the years with their imprisoned father-and that he believes he and his sister have yet to learn the full story of their mother's death.

    Then Alex disappears.

    As Lauren is forced to peek under the floorboards of her carefully constructed memories, she comes to question the version of her history that she has clung to so fiercely. Lauren's search for the truth about what happened on that fateful night so many years ago is a riveting tale that will keep readers feverishly turning pages.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 26, 2011
    ISBN9780307912978
    Unavailable
    Close Your Eyes: A Novel
    Author

    Amanda Eyre Ward

    Amanda Eyre Ward was born in New York City, and graduated from Williams College and the University of Montana. Her short stories have been published in various literary reviews and magazines. She is the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning novel ‘Sleep Towards Heaven’ and ‘How to be Lost’, and was named by the New York Post as one of five Writers to Watch in 2003. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, geologist Tip Meckel.

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    Reviews for Close Your Eyes

    3.5/5

    59 ratings5 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Another book that I really wanted to like, but in the end wound up finishing simply because I was so far into it that I did not want to just abandon it. Many of the reviews I had read mentioned plot twists and elements of suspense. Instead I found that once all the characters were introduced it was obvious who the real culprit was so there was absolutely no Whodunit factor! I felt absolutely no bond to any of the characters beyond Sylvia and her brother.
    • 3/5
      I can’t say I loved this book, but it kept me turning pages and I stayed up late to finish it. It was an OK story told fairly well. It was full of one of my pet peeves; naming every object in the room, especially brand names. Like a weird cross between product placement and fetish in a way that guarantees it won’t even be readable to anyone in a few years.
    • 2/5
      This book was a huge disappointment. The characters were pretty flat and the plot predictable. I gave it two stars only because I was motivated to finish it. The murder at the center of the story should have been solved at the time it was committed. There was no real development of the characters - rather just a flat narrative. Jumping around in time only made it confusing and was an unnecessary gimmick.
    • 3/5
      Close Your Eyes is the story of Lauren and Alex Mahdian, two young children, asleep in their backyard tree house the night their mother is murdered. Their father is convicted of the murder and Alex becomes all that Lauren has left, her security and roots and family. Lauren seems to be living at the edges of life, squeaking by with a job as a realtor and with a loveable, but goofy and out-of-work boyfriend. One day Alex, shockingly, tells Lauren that he believes their father is innocent, and then departs for a Doctors Without Borders assignment in Iraq and Lauren begins to come unraveled. As she grapples with strange and terrifying dreams of the night her mother was killed, Alex goes missing in Iraq and her need for answers becomes unbearable.The pacing of the plot in Close Your Eyes is incredibly well done and you will definitely find yourself frantically turning pages to see what happens. The tension builds until you are so tempted to just read the last page that it requires an almost physical effort not to. The character development gets a little lost in all the rushing forward. Lauren and Gerry have such a sweet, uncomplicated relationship, more history and depth about how that came about would have made it feel more believable. The ending, while surprising, seemed too convenient for such an intricate beginning. Lauren deserved more than a tidy ending with all the corners tucked in. While Close Your Eyes isn't up to Amanda Eyre Ward's usual standards, it is a fast-paced, entertaining, easy read.
    • 2/5
      Close Your Eyes is about the effect of a devastating tragedy on three women's lives from their childhood to adult. Each is involved in the tragedy in a different way. The story had the potential to be a very powerful one. Unfortunately, the characters and each individual story was not developed in detail. It would have been interesting seeing the characters and their emotions/reactions more developed. Perhaps the book could have been told from one perspective allowing the reader to feel that character's emotions. The book seemed detached and unfinished.There also appeared to be editorial issues with the book. The cover refers to one of the main characters as being six at a point in the story. The text refers to the same character as being eight at that point.