True North

I’ll admit: I rolled my eyes at first. *Another* novel about a middle-aged couple confronting their regrets? But *True North* hooked me by Chapter 3, when Sam nearly flips a raft full of tourists and Graff’s writing shifts from quiet observation to full-throttle survival mode. This isn’t a book about *whether* the Brechts’ marriage will survive—it’s about what they’re willing to drown to keep it. Hoppe’s narration is mostly brilliant, especially in the rafting scenes where his pacing turns frantic, mirroring the chaos of the rapids. His Swami is particularly nuanced—a woman whose patience has eroded like riverbank, but who still loves her husband enough to lie to him. That said, his female voices occasionally veer into caricature (the town gossip sounds like a Disney villain), and the production’s occasional uneven volume in outdoor scenes pulled me out of the moment. Still, the audiobook’s strength is its *sensory* immersion. Graff’s descriptions of the river—its smells, its sounds, the way light hits the water—are so vivid that I found myself pausing to Google whitewater rafting terms. The pacing stumbles in the middle during a subplot involving the town’s economic decline (interesting, but tonally disjointed), but the final act redeems it with a climax that’s both heartbreaking and, oddly, exhilarating. By the end, I wasn’t just rooting for Sam and Swami—I was *in* that Winnebago with them, sweating through the vinyl seats, wondering if the map they’re following was ever accurate to begin with. If you’ve ever loved something (or someone) that’s slowly killing you, this book will gut you. Bring waterproof headphones.