October 6, 2011 / Leslie

Review: Domestic Violets

Audiobook Review, Book Review, Humor, Literature

Domestic Violets
by Matthew Norman
Read by: Todd McLaren

Genre: Literature, Humor
Publisher: Harper Audio
Publish Date: August 9, 2011
Format: Downloadable Audio | 11 Hours
Rating: 5 of 5

Tom Violet wants to be a writer, a real writer like his Pulitzer Prize winning father. Instead he is working a boring, dead-end, corporate job as a copywriter. Tom has secretly written a novel but doesn’t want to tell anyone, especially now that his father has just won The Pulitzer. To add to Tom’s troubles he is having problems with his marriage, which translates into a “problem” in the bedroom, he develops a crush on a young co-worker, and to top it off his father showed up in the middle of the night for a visit and intends to stay. Tom can hardly throw him out for his dad owns the house.

This may not sound like a fantastic premise for a book: Guy seems to have everything but is never happy and always whiny. Nope, that’s not what this book is about. This is an hysterically funny, well-written story with interesting characters. It’s witty and intelligent and truly captures the dreariness of the corporate world that Tom is trapped in. As a corporate worker myself, I recognized many of the character types that Tom has to deal with on a daily basis. His scintillating comments and observations are priceless.

The funniest moment, and there were many to choose from, was Tom’s “mad as hell and not gonna take it any more” type rant when he publishes a scathing press release shortly after finding out a co-worker who loathes and torments him is now his boss. The press release goes viral, Tom gets fired and becomes a hero to workers everywhere. It was so good I had to listen to it twice. It’s not all comedy and there are some serious, touching moments to round out the story.

This audio version of the book was easy to listen to and Todd McLaren sounded just as I expected Tom Violet to sound. It would have been nice to have a second, female, reader to do the women’s voices but that’s a wish and not a complaint as the audio was just fine. The only problem I had, if you could call it that, was bursting out laughing while walking around listening to the book because parts of it were so darn funny I couldn’t help myself. I’m sure the print version would be just as good and I highly recommend this book.