Wolf Bells

I went into *Wolf Bells* expecting something gentle—maybe a cozy study of intergenerational bonding—and left feeling like I’d been electrocuted. Jenn Lee’s narration is the secret weapon here; she doesn’t perform the voices so much as *live* in them. The way she delivers the disabled poet’s stuttering, halting poetry made my skin prickle, and the ex-musician’s gruff tenderness felt like a hug you don’t deserve. That said, the novel’s nonlinear structure occasionally left me disoriented, as if I was stumbling through the House’s dim hallways myself. At times, Zumas’ prose veers into abstraction just when you crave grounding—her descriptions of the river are stunning, but I’d have loved a touch more concrete detail about the characters’ daily routines. The audiobook’s production is impeccable, though; the river’s distant murmur feels like a constant presence, a reminder of time’s relentless flow. If you’re here for a tidy redemption arc, this isn’t it. But if you want a book that dares to ask what it means to be needed, *Wolf Bells* will haunt you long after the last chapter.