Poignant and heart and gut wrenching, Myriam J.A. Chancy's novel is a timely read with the events unfolding in Haiti. Each of the book's chapters has a different narrator, and through the chapters we learn their pre-story, where they were at the time of the earthquake and what happened to them after. My heart hurts for Haiti and this book personalized disaster survivors and victims.

What kept me from giving it a 5 was I wish I had read the book instead of listening to the audiobook. Since there were so many narrators, it was very difficult to keep track of who's who without being able to flip back and forth. Each of the characters is connected to another, which I love in books, but in audiobook form it was difficult at time to follow. I also didn't connect well with the audiobook narrator. I think having a different narrator per chapter would be powerful.

I would love to pick up a physical copy and re-read it in the future. I'd like to be able to pause and ponder the enormity of what happened and the elegance and descriptive prose. What Storm, What Thunder is an important read.

My thanks to OrangeSky Audio and NetGalley for the complimentary audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

WHAT STORM, WHAT THUNDER by Myriam JA Chancy, narrated by Ella Turenne.

We learn about what it was like for people from all walks of life who lived through the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. It was such a catastrophic event and she describes so realistically the stories of what they withstood. The characters showed resilience over the devastating situations they endured.

This is a must-read!

Thanks to NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio for an audio ARC for my honest review.


#NetGalley, #WhatStormWhatThunder #OrangeSkyAudio

This ticks a bunch of my boxes: non-linear, multi-POV, central theme. Focusing on the famous Haitian earthquake, the narrative occupies multiple characters at various points before and after the event. Some of them attempt to define what “home” means to them, in the context of being Haitian. Others identity is altered from the event, though they’re on the peripheral. A local who comes to help rebuild creates a meta context for relief efforts and fonds.

All in all, it’s a much more comprehensive result than a single POV, and it ranges in privilege, ethnicity, gender, etc. If you’re going to examine an event like this, this is a great way to do it. It’s compartmentalized. Not sensationalized. Respectful. Seems well researched. It’s a much better structure than, say, having a structure that is only the event unfolding and jumping from character to character to have a sort of disaster movie-esk creation.

It also means that they’re all pretty much short stories, and so vary, as these are want to do. Some I found really interesting and others felt a bit lack lustre. The theme still hits, but it’s in contrast to the stories that really stand out. This is forever my issue with short stories. The nice thing about this one though, is I think it somewhat knows this and so has the through line of the event and overarching themes.

I did listen to it on audio and I found the narrator to be far better than is typical. Some people complained that it’s the same narrator for everyone, so it could be confusing when it changes characters. They’re siloed to each chapter but I suppose it depends how much bandwidth you give your audiobooks. If you pay attention there is no problem. If you’re doing other things, though, I could see how that could happen. Heads up!

The prose felt very natural to the narrator and also above average. Great sense of time and place. Evocative. Active. Good at choosing what is interesting and unique about the locale to communicate to the reader and dispensing with the rest. Worth your time. Even for people who don’t like the short-story-as-novel structure. There’s enough grounding everything together, and no story felt too overlong, even if I wasn’t as into it as another, that it feels like it would appeal to a wide range of readers, imo.

I first heard of What Storm, What Thunder when it was selected as a #BOTM pick - thank you to OrangeSky Audio and Spiegel and Grau for my ALC on NetGalley!

Pub date: October 5th

In one sentence: This book covers the aftermath of a 7.0 earthquake in Haiti through the interwoven experiences of multiple individuals near and far from the tragedy.

Some books sweep you up and away from life, and this book was one of them for me. Ella Turenne's narration is so beautiful and musical - I couldn't stop listening, and I ended up finishing the audio in a little more than a day.

Sometimes multiple perspectives on audio can be a bit confusing - but not this one. It's organized into longer sections (some 1-2 hours) each covering the perspective of a single character, so you don't have to worry about listening for changing voices. You DO need to hear the name of the character at the beginning of the chapter, and I suggest using the Goodreads description to get a quick idea of the character's identity at the beginning of each chapter.

I enjoyed each of the stories, but Didier, a Haitian emigrant to Boston, really stuck with me. His experiences with racism and classism in the US, as well as his worries about family back home, are so poignantly written. I loved seeing all of the stories connect as I got closer to the end of the book.

If you like multiple perspectives, ownvoices, and literary fiction, I highly recommend this book. My MIL loves literary fiction, and I think I'm going to gift her this one for Christmas! 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

Thanks NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio for the advanced audiocopy of What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J. A. Chancy.
A story about the disastrous earthquake in Haiti and the lives of the people. Realistic and alluring story.
The narration of Ella Turenne had soothing and emotional effect on the story. I just wished it had multiple narrators for the multiple characters. It would have been helpful to differentiate the characters and more engaging.
Overall a good audiobook.

This was a book that was very hard to read but at the same time very enlightening to learn and know what happen in Haiti, I live in a city where a lot of Haitians have come to seek refugee, and I can attest to how wonderful people they're, very dedicated, very hard working and always with a smile on their face that will make your day even brighter.

What storm, what thunder show us how hard Hati had it after the earthquake, how devastating it was for the whole country, to learn each story just made me cry and felt for them, for many of the refugees that feel lost and need someplace to call home, when your own home and life has been ripped apart in just a few hours. the struggle to find that center again.

what I love about the way this book was written is that even we get to learn many of the stories at some point they get to interconnect and make this wonderful book even more deep and enjoyable. this doesn't mean that it will get any lighter but that will give the story even more deepness and more shape to what was happening with each situation and character.

Definitely, it was not easy to read but very worth it, I feel like I can connect or understand better what was happening especially with each character.

The narrations were good but I really didn't connect much with the narration, Ella Turenne did a great job but somehow I felt a little disconnected. I felt more anger than sadness while listening to the book.

other than that, this was a good book, not an easy one but very enlightening something that will open your eyes to many of the situations we're living in at the present moment

A harrowing read that didn't quite engage me the way I was hoping for. The comparison to Edwidge Danticat made me think that I would love this but Chancy's style just wasn't for me. I'm sure many others will find this a more immersive read than I did.

Netgalley shared with me a copy of the audiobook. This is my honest review of the book.

This book is a fiction story based on a true event. The story guideline takes place in Haiti when an earthquake strikes the country.

I liked this book a lot. I felt connected to the story because I'm from a country where natural disasters are a little bit common and expected at some points in the year. This book taught me about resilience and the power of community. The story contains a lot of POVs from the characters which stories intertwined.

The only thing I was a bit confused, when the narrator was telling the story of a male character, there wasn't any change in her voice or indication that the character was a male, until far in the story when he mentioned his pronoun.

There are a lot of characters in the story and they are all well-developed. The author gives us depth in their stories but trying to keep them straight was a bit overwhelming at points. It was difficult for me to remember names and the relation between the characters.

In a Nutshell: This would have been a fabulous book had I chosen to read it than hear it.

In 2010, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 hit near Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. With the epicentre just some kilometres away from the capital, multiple aftershocks, a resultant localised tsunami, and an overcrowded and impoverished country, the devastation was intense with three million people affected and at least 150000 thousand dead.
Author Miriam Chancy brings us the fictional stories of various characters affected by this factual disaster. All the stories are written as the individual’s narrative of his/her life in general, and the impact of the earthquake on them. The characters come from various social backgrounds, lending a greater diversity to their experiences. Some narratives are in first person, the rest in third person. Some begin with the earthquake itself, some others end with the earthquake. Some are stuck in an emotional impasse from the aftermath, some others look at the future with hope, like a phoenix waiting to rise from the ashes.
All the stories intersect partly in their characters. So at the start, it will take you a bit of time to know the various names, but as the links establish and re-establish themselves, the depth of the impact increases. The structuring of the book is thus impeccable. Unlike what you would imagine, it doesn’t become depressing, though there are many hard-hitting scenes. What I appreciate most is that there was no trauma porn or misery porn. There’s a greater undertone of poignancy than pessimism, a greater importance to experience than exaggeration.
Even beyond the earthquake, the book provides a great glimpse into Haitian life, culture and beliefs. Even though some of the characters are expats, their stories are interwoven strongly with their Haitian background. My favourites were the tales of Richard (a businessman dealing in water bottling, bonus points for the mention of farmer suicides in India) and Didier (a dog-loving cab driver in Boston.)

Why then my lower rating?
Because of the audiobook. Though the narrator was pretty good, the audio version failed me because of these reasons:
👉 Each chapter contained one character perspective, which was anywhere between 1 to 2 hours long. So taking a break in between chapters was tedious, especially if a narrative had just begun. Pausing midway broke the emotional connect and the comprehensional flow.
👉 Because of the multiple characters, it took me a bit of time to get into the narrative. The start especially felt very muddled up.
👉 Every character is voiced by the same narrator. This becomes very confusing when there is the first person narrative for a male character and you keep hearing the female voice. Having multiple narrators (one for each character), or at least having one male and one female narrator matching the gender of the characters, would have worked far better for me.

All in all, I can feel that this was a great piece of writing. And I am sure it would have worked better for me had I been reading it. As an audiobook, I can only rate it a 3. As a book, it deserves at least a 4. (A more precise rating would be possible only when I actually read it.) So I’ll just mark it as a 3.5 for now. Do give it a try if you are looking for a very unusual anthology, but remember… read it.

My thanks to Orange Sky Audio and NetGalley for the audio ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.

What Storm What Thunder is an intense and lyrical read. In 2010 a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti taking an estimated 300,000 lives. This book takes fictional characters and weaves their lives together before, during and after that tragedy. There is an unbelievable amount of pain, violence, loss and destruction that is described in the novel. It is at times extremely hard to read. However, I had not read much in the way of stories about this absolute catastrophe and I’m thankful to know these stories now. Chancy is an exquisite writer and she brings the people, the atmosphere and the terror to life. I listened to this on audio without reading much about the book before and was a bit confused in the beginning because of how many different characters there are. I actually recommend reading up on the various perspectives before diving in to orient yourself.

First, Chancy is such a magnificent writer. Second, I believe the earthquake that hit Haiti leads to the psychic numbing that many of us feel when an atrocity is too great. There is no way to process 300,000 deaths, that is too many to make any sort of rational sense. But that is the estimated number of people lost in Haiti in 2010. Chancy begins to draw back the curtain on this tragedy by painting these souls lost back to life. A panorama of characters narrate their stories on the days leading up to, during, and following that day. These characters show the innerconnectedness of a tight knit community that fight for each other and themselves. This is an astounding book.

This is a beautifully written fictional story surrounding the real devastation of the 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010.

The beginning was a little confusing, but once I got a handle on who everyone was, I was enthralled. This is one where it would be good to read the description before beginning to have a better grasp on all the characters you’ll be meeting.

This was an incredible story but very emotionally draining. Hearing how people lived and the physical violence happening in the camps after the earthquake wasn’t easy. The narrator was great, but this might be easier to read than to listen since there is an excessive use of exploitive language that was intense and aggressive.

Even though there were times I felt overwhelmed by the story, I found this to be a very powerful book with well developed characters.

Wow. I had to regroup after about 40 pages. The story is gripping and sad. Circulated photos of catastrophic tragedies are not able to express the individual suffering. I can only imagine. After reading this I will see the photos differently; never forgetting the raw aftermath stories told in this book.

Chancy has showed every level of humanity from top to bottom. God is not finished with this world. Scenes in this story are really hard to read and wrap my thoughts around. The differences in culture are twofold beautiful and frightening.

There is a scene with profanity, and ironically the author addresses the swearing. I actually understood the first couple expletives or how one could be pushed that far. However, there were too many expressed in a short scene, and thus a four star rating. The writing is so good, I was embarrassed for the author choosing the path that required the least amount of effort.

This is one where I wanted both the audio and physical books. I had the audiobook. The narration was beautiful and spot on with the various emotions. What Storm, What Thunder is beautifully written and flows seamlessly.

Thank you Netgalley for accepting my request to read and review What Storm, What Thunder.

#NetGalley
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#NarratorEllaTurenne
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Thank you Net Galley for an audio copy of What Storm, What Thunder by Myrium Chancy. This is a fictional story revolving around the devastating earthquake in 2010 Haiti. This story is woven with several characters, intertwining. Beautiful!

In "What Storm, What Thunder", we follow a group of different, interconnected characters before, during and after the shattering earthquake in Port-au-Prince in 2010. Listening to the audiobook, I felt transported to Haiti, especially the IDP camps where we spend a considerable amount of time with the characters. In my opinion, the author skillfully balanced depicting the individual struggles with exploring broader themes of colonialism, rape culture, racism, and class. Discussions of international aid were woven organically into the story, giving the novel a depth that truly sets it apart. Aside from the well-crafted story, I kept interrupting the audiobook to note quotes. Beautiful sentences, masterfully delivered by the narrator, drew me into the heartbreaking story of a nation at the mercy of both nature and those who rule it from within and without its borders. As I mourn these characters and their livelihoods lost during the tragedies, I can only encourage you to pick this title and delve into Port au Prince and what's left of it for yourself.

Thank you so much to OrangeSky Audio for providing me with the audiocopy!

I really wanted to love this one but I struggled to get invested. The story seemed to move really slowly but I did enjoy the wide cast of characters that brought everyday life in Haiti to vivid effect. It was great seeing what life is like for different sections of society on the island, a place I'm not familiar with at all. Recommended for fans of How the one-armed sister sweeps her house. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my audio review copy!

The cover of this book drew me in! It is just gorgeous! The description of the book is captivating with the topic being different people and how they experienced an earthquake in Haiti. This was my first book to read by this author. The characters are well developed and have many layers. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but each story is well developed and meaningful to the reading experience. To me the most intriguing was Sonia, and the most heart wrenching was Sara. The book beautifully connects our relationship to the nature and how we go about our days without really thinking how it could all suddenly change. This would be a great read for a book club to discuss as I feel that each reader gains different perspective and meaning from reading.
My thanks to the publisher for the complimentary digital copy via NetGalley.

What Storm, What Thunder is a novel that is inspired by the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti in 2010. All of the characters are fictional, but the research that Myriam J. A. Chancy put into this work is clear by how real they all feel. Haiti before, during, and after the earthquake is recounted through interconnected stories told by a wide cast of characters; from a wealthy ex-pat water-bottling executive, to a small-time drug trafficker, to an emigrant musician driving a taxi in Boston, all of the characters are remembered by Ma Lou, an old woman who sells produce in the market in Haiti.

While heart-wrenching, the writing is a joy to read: lyrical and striking. Each character’s backstory and connection is slowly revealed as the chapters unfold, but the reader never feels like a voyeur to the trauma. Instead, the connection to them is deep, engaging, and cathartic. The themes of family—the ones by blood and by choice, redemption, sacrifice, and fear make this a novel about so much more than an earthquake. It’s a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

This novel is great for readers who love sweeping stories told over multiple points of view, beautiful prose, or want to read about a tragic event that should loom larger in all of our collective memories. 

What Storm, What Thunder will stick with its readers long after they finish it.

What Storm, What Thunder is a heart read. A stellar representation of a snapshot in time of the lives of Haitian people who lost loved ones and survived the devastating earthquake of 2010. The care with which Chancy crafts these characters and their experiences is a beacon and testament to the intimate bond she has with her country, her homeland; their resilience and spirituality.

At the heart of this novel is bonds; connections of family, friends, and community. A connection to self and country that even when unwanted, even when too harsh, are exactly from where we draw strength.

Created with tenderness, heart, reflection, knowledge, and empathy, these characters and their stories take flight from the pages to the mind, connecting souls to the indelible that marks our shared humanity.

What Storm, What Thunder is what depth, what meaning, what beauty, what survival can be conjured, even in the face of loss, violence, sadness, and white saviour mentalities from an author that is steeped in the country, its terrain and people for who she writes.

A story to be read and cherished.

It was a little difficult the follow the plot of this story. It may be because the audio is harder to go back and forth to review and re listen but it seemed that the beginning was filled with metaphors and symbolism that I didn’t understand, but made more sense as I continued to listen. There were also a lot of characters to juggle and the different languages spoken were challenging but were much better received in the audio version as opposed to reading the physical book.