THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW

It's difficult to imagine an audiobook with a more bleak premise. Between 2017 and 2024, author and Princeton professor Yiyun Li lost both of her sons to suicide, at the ages of just 16 and 19. This work explores her grief, her struggles to understand why her sons chose to end their lives, and her progress towards acceptance. Suzanne Toren's voice is gentle and restrained, and it's well suited to the more contemplative passages, which can be moving. However, listeners might find some of the writing detached, self-consciously literary, and even pretentious--though Toren does her best to warm it up and make it more sympathetic. D.B. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2025]