THE VACATIONERS

Audiobook listeners have all the luck. Narrator Kristen Sieh has transformed Emma Straub's entertaining summertime novel into a thoroughly captivating listen. The story focuses on a dysfunctional New York family--father, mother, grown son and lady friend, and college-bound daughter, who head to Mallorca for two weeks with mom's best friend, who is gay, and his husband. Personal crises abound, delicious meals are prepared, married and unmarried sex occurs, a punch is thrown, and some lessons of the heart are learned. Through it all, Sieh's pleasant, clear narration moves the story along, and her chameleon ability to inhabit anyone from a Puerto Rican aerobics instructor to an older male New Yorker adds nuance and meaning to what might otherwise have been a simple confection. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2014]