I received Another Piece of My Heart as an audiobook.  Although it’s not my favorite format, I downloaded it to my iPod as my “Hawaiian beach read” and started listening to it on the six-hour plane ride.  Wow, did that ride feel like one of the quickest and best plane rides ever. The aircraft was packed, but I just closed my eyes, shut out the world, and immersed myself in the story of Andy, a 37-ish woman navigating her way through the complexities of life, love, family, and relationships.

Andy meets Ethan, falls in love, and marries him.  All she has ever wanted was a baby and a family of her own. As it turns out, she cannot get pregnant.

Ethan came to the marriage with two daughters and for him adoption is out of the question. Andy, heartbroken, must come to terms with this. The older daughter, Emily, is nothing but trouble and Andy’s relationship with her is terrible at best. Lots of bad stuff happens…

Flip to part two which is mostly about Emily.

The author gives you the perspective from both sides. Emily constantly struggles with self-esteem issues and her connection with both her real mother and father, as well as her turbulent relationship with Andy.  Anyone who has gone through these dilemmas can probably relate.

This book is an easy listen and I found the deeper I got into it the more I liked it. There was a fair bit of whining from both women, but I guess I would probably do the same thing if my life were as complicated (not in a good way) as theirs.  A tad long for what it was, I still enjoyed it overall. I would guess that any woman who has ever struggled with these issues would probably feel compassion for all the characters.

I enjoyed having the actual author Jane Green read this.  She read it with passion and during emotional scenes you know this is really how she meant it to sound.  It was worth a “listen”.

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Thank you, Traveling Pat for your review of Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green.

Disclosure: Patricia received a copy of the audiobook for the purpose of review.