The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 2

I’ll admit, I went into *Vol. 2* skeptical—could Emma’s journals sustain their charm beyond the first book’s novelty? The answer is a resounding *yes*, though not without a few stumbles. Brower doubles down on the Lion family’s dysfunction, and it’s a masterclass in how to make unlikeable characters compelling. Aunt Eugenia, in particular, is a triumph: a tyrant wrapped in lace, whose every ‘darling’ drips with passive-aggressive venom. Gaunt’s performance sells it; she doesn’t just *read* Eugenia’s lines, she *embodies* the woman’s suffocating authority, right down to the clipped vowels. The pacing, however, is uneven. Emma’s academic detours (fascinating as they are) sometimes halt the momentum, and a subplot involving a mysterious neighbor feels undercooked—more tease than payoff. Still, the audiobook’s production is flawless: Gaunt’s timing turns even throwaway lines into punchlines, and the ambient sounds (a distant church bell, a clinking teacup) ground the story without overpowering it. My only real gripe? At 4.5 hours, it ends just as the chaos reaches its peak. Then again, maybe that’s the point—like Emma herself, we’re left craving more, even as we’re exasperated by the whole lot of them.