Audiobook Review: Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Dream When You're Feeling Blue
Author: Elizabeth Berg
Narrator: Elizabeth Berg
Publisher: Random House
Published: May 1, 2007
CD: 8 discs
Source: borrowed from library


My Rating: 3.5 stars


Synopsis (from goodreads.com): As the novel opens, Kitty and Louise Heaney say good-bye to their boyfriends Julian and Michael, who are going to fight overseas. On the domestic front, meat is rationed, children participate in metal drives, and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller play music that offers hope and lifts spirits. For Kitty, a confident, headstrong young woman, the departure of her boyfriend and the lessons she learns about love, resilience, and war will bring a surprise and uncover a secret, and will lead her to a radical action on behalf of those she loves that will change the Heaney family forever. The lifelong consequences of the choices the sisters make are at the heart of this superb novel about the power of love and the enduring strength of family.


My Thoughts: This is the first audiobook review I've ever done, so bear with me!


Set in Chicago during World War II, Elizabeth Berg takes the listener into the world of the Heaney family. The three girls, Louise, Kitty, and Tish, are all young women surrounded by the war. Kitty and Louise have boyfriends who have just enlisted, and Tish has several young men that she corresponds with. There are also three younger brothers, along with their parents, and they all reside in one house (with one bathroom!). Following this family through the war as they all make sacrifices, from rationing and started victory gardens to giving away their toys for a metal drive. The effects of the war are made evident in this book. Berg does a great job of making the reader feel as if they are living through this time and also sacrificing things for the sake of the war effort.


All of the characters are real. The main character is Kitty and you see how she deals with the war. While I found Kitty to be a great character, she did get to be a bit too much towards the last quarter of the book. I was starting to predict what she would do or say before she did it. It made the last part of the book go a bit slow, but I still enjoyed it. Since this is my first audiobook, I don't know how most books are narrated. Elizabeth Berg was also the narrator for the book and I think she did a great job. Since she created those characters, I felt that she really brought them to life and read with such enthusiasm and understanding. The only thing that detracted from her reading was her accents. The parents, Frank and Margaret, are Irish. There were times when the accents were dead on, and other times, they sounded a bit German. It didn't ruin my experience of the book in anyway, but just was somewhat comical at points.


This was a great audiobook and I will definitely be checking out more of Berg's audiobooks in the future.