Tell the Machine Goodnight: A Novel
Written by Katie Williams
Narrated by Rebecca Lowman, Kirby Heyborne and Alex McKenna
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Smart and inventive, an emotional pause-resister that considers the elusive definition of happiness.
Pearl's job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion?
Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett—but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job—not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either.
Told from an alternating cast of endearing characters from within Pearl and Rhett's world, Tell the Machine Goodnight delivers a smartly moving and entertaining story about relationships and the ways that they can most surprise and define us. Along the way, Katie Williams playfully illuminates our national obsession with positive psychology, our reliance on quick fixes and technology. What happens when these obsessions begin to overlap? With warmth, humor, and a clever touch, Williams taps into our collective unease about the modern world and allows us see it a little more clearly.
Read by Rebecca Lowman, Kirby Heyborne, and Alex McKenna, with Jorjeana Marie, Arthur Morey, and Cassandra Morris
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Reviews for Tell the Machine Goodnight
44 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As an audiobook, this was pretty good and it was good to listen to before going to sleep. But, it was hard to tell if this was a series of short stories that were all related or just a loosely constructed novel. I know thatdoesn't sound much like an endorsement but there you have it...
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Hard work. The story starts out ok, then branches out and loses focus. Uses that device where you have to work to figure out who is narrating various chapters - hasn't that been done to death? Story about Val seems a completely unnecessary diversion. Deeply unsatisfying read.