I enjoyed to characters and the story but the writing was something I wasn't really used to nor that I could get into. It's not a bad book by any means, the writing was beautiful. It just wasn't the book for me!! 3 stars

An interesting historic tale that takes place along the coast of Maine, a fictional island with some long-standing families. I listened to the audio version of this book and found the narrator to have a lovely albeit a bit droning voice. In all honesty, I did not end of completing the book for this reason. I may pick it back up, but the story itself did not captivate me enough to continue.

Thank you to NetGally and RB Media, Recorded Books for the advanced copy.

One of the most beautiful engaging, devastating books of the year. My Booker frontrunner. I was captivated, and driven to learn more about the story that inspired this. The characters on Apple Island are impossible not to root for. They are so wonderfully created, despite how sparse the writing can be. We learn so much in simple scenes and single lines. The character of Rabbit, for example, is provided an arc so devastating and yet she's really in just a few scenes. So many characters and moments are like that here. The genius of this writer! I loved this so so much. Beautifully read, as well. Thanks.

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
The book covers the history of the island and the eviction of its residents.
The writing was bogged down and wandered around which took away from the story and the writing. The idea was interesting, but the writing took away from it.

Beautifully written, fictionalised account of the true story about a small island in Maine, home to the first truly interracial community in America until the eviction of its residents in the early 1900s. He did a great job of painting a vivid picture of the families on the Apple Island, brought together through many decades of shared hardship battling nature, starvation, tragedies, and in some cases, one another. He details the inevitable inbreeding, the loneliness and isolation but also the sheer joy and freedom of living life away from prejudice and racism until their island was brought under the scrutiny of the mainland and their independence is no more.

I just wished that the author adhered closer to the historical truth rather than fictionalising almost the full cast of characters and subplots. Very well narrated audiobook.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with the audiobook for This Other Eden. This won’t be the last time I read something by Paul Harding. I loved his writing style, loved the depiction of historical events in the context of the lives of the residents of Apple island. The story describes how Benjamin Honey; a former slave, who married an Irish woman ; Patience, tried to build a life on an island isolated from the world. He planted apple trees and there where it got its name. Then the timeline changes to the year 1912 where a bunch of the Honeys descendants still lived in poverty in Apple Island. Some events occur and change the course of the characters’ lives. This also has so many references to the Bible where Ester recalls the Arc of Noah’s story and compares their story to it. An impactful story that span many generations and highlighted human emotions beautifully. I recommend this for fans of John Steinbeck and Jonathan Franzen.

It’s hard to say I loved this book—the story of a mixed-race Maine island community forced out of their homes is tragic and infuriating, more-so because it’s based on a real 1912 historical event. I had to take frequent breaks while reading, but I always came back to it, in part because of a need to know what would become of these characters and in part because of the exquisite writing. This writing, you guys! Reading these sentences was pure pleasure. There are images and turns of phrase that have been replaying in my mind since I encountered them, and I’m still marveling at the creativity and mastery of language these passages required. I have so many thoughts about this book, but I’m more confident in my ability to verbalize them than write them. I’ll be sharing more in my upcoming January Ranked Reading Recap, but for now I’ll refer you to this excellent NYT review.

A beautiful, moving and respectful story of a small community that is forcefully removed from their tiny, isolated island off the coast of Maine.

The novel, based on a true story, stretches from its first settler in 1793 to the last generation to inhabit the island in the early 20th century. In 1910 they were evicted by the State of Maine over concerns about hygiene, poverty, immorality, imbecility and (under the influence of a burgeoning eugenics movement) the 'mixture of blood'. An episode for which the state has apologised in 2010.

Very well written and the audio version is also very well narrated (albeit slightly too fast).

4 stars. A beautiful and descriptive fictionalized account of an integrated community living on real life Malaga Island, Maine ( Apple island in the book) and their subsequent eviction by the state motivated by both money and eugenics. The book focuses on the individual families and their descendants as a modern day “Noahs arc.”The narration was enjoyable to listen to. The story was slower paced which I thought appropriately matched the pace of life on the island and allowed me to savor the writing. I enjoyed researching Malaga Island history in more detail after reading this. Thanks to @netgalley for this audiobook

This is an absolutely brilliantly written story about a real-life mixed-race island community off the coast of Maine, Apple Island, from its settlement to its demise. It is not a feel-good story, but the true story of how a government can intervene without conscience and destroy a people.

Paul Harding's ability to convey raw emotion is unparalleled. My heart was breaking as I listened to the audiobook version, which was well done. The characters become so real, and their resilience is amazing. To me, Apple Island is a symbol of purity, and the outside world is the sin that invades and destroys. The title, This Other Eden, is perfect for this book.

After listening to the audiobook, I purchased the ebook version. I will read this one again, because it is a master class in writing.

I received a free copy of the audiobook from the publishers via Netgalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

If you like hauntingly beautiful prose, This Other Eden by Paul Harding is a must read! Paul Harding won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel Tinkers, and the quality of his writing is beyond compare. I could pick almost any page and read a sentence that is mesmerizing and its style and rhythm. Here’s an example

“He loved sculpting …most of all hands, through which he took special joy in expressing despair, support, betrayal, supplication, forgiveness, healing, benediction, blessing, revenge, comfort, and murder, hands raised high, hanging limp, clenched, slack, palms out, extended, turned in, retracted, bathing feet, supporting elbows, wiping tears, tightening nooses, drawing swords, jabbing vinegar sops, thrusting spears, caressing sleeping faces.”

The whole book is written like this! For me, this moving novel was not as much about plot as it was a mood and a feeling. I listened to the audiobook and let my mind be carried along in the current of words. The narrator, Edoardo Ballerini, has a rich hypnotic voice and listening to him is bliss.

The plot describes daily life in a small and racially integrated community living on a remote island off the coast of Maine. The government forces the residents to leave and institutionalizes some of them. A 15 year old named Ethan is a gifted artist and can pass for white, so he gets sent to live with a wealthy family.

Paul Harding interrupts his narrative a lot to include sermons, art theory, philosophical musings, songs, Biblical imagery, and Shakespeare. At times as I was reading this, I grew impatient with the writing, even though it is a sublime, because I just wanted to find out what was actually going to happen to the characters next. Sometimes the multiple tangents were fascinating and sometimes they were frustrating.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for the audio ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini
Content: 3.5 stars ~ Narration: 4 stars

In the late 18th century, a former slave, Benjamin Honey, and his Irish wife, Patience, found an isolated island where they could live. They planted an apple orchard there. This novel takes place more than a century later, in 1912, and tells the story of their descendants and some neighbors that found a home on the island through the years. Esther is the great-granddaughter of Benjamin and Patience. Now she is the oldest of the Honey family and watches over her son and grandchildren. Biblical references contribute to the atmosphere of this novel. This other Eden is based on true events on Malaga Island.

I didn’t read the Tinkers, Paul Harding’s novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2010, but I was interested in this novel because of the author.

This other Eden is a beautifully written novel about a heartbreaking subject. But unfortunately, it didn’t grab my attention as much as it should have. I often found it pretty slow, and the sentences, even though magnificent, were very long. Because of the above, I am glad I had an audiobook. Edoardo Ballerini is a very good narrator, although his reading was a little faster than usual.

Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

Paul Harding is one of the best novelists of our time. I love that he spent so much time writing this story to tell about this great island that few people know about. His writing is so beautiful, it only enhances the story.

This Other Eden is an incredible and heartbreaking story about the inhabitants of Apple Island, a mixed-race community evicted by the state. Based on the true story of Malaga Island off the coast of Maine, Paul Harding’s latest novel delves into the topics of eugenics, displacement, white Christianity, and survival.

While I found myself drawn to the story and its characters, I had a difficult time connecting with Harding’s writing style. There were moments I found his prose moving, but I too often found it long-winded.

Overall, This Other Eden is a thought-provoking work of historical fiction. I’d like to give it a second chance so I can better digest the character backstories and biblical references.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an arc of This Other Eden in exchange for an honest review.

A beautifully poetic novel inspired by surpassingly ugly real events. This is the story of a small, racially diverse community forging a hardscrabble life on Apple Island, a tiny island off the coast of Maine, who are forcibly evicted by authorities on the mainland, and is inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, whose inhabitants were forcibly removed in 1911. Ostensibly “for their own good,” islanders (in life and in this novel) are removed due to eugenics and the disgust inspired in many by the islanders’ disregard of race, with white, black and Penobscot intermarrying and having children. (Going forward, I will concern myself only with the fictional island of this novel.) Harding doesn’t sugarcoat; there is privation and disease, but there is happiness and the freedom and dignity of providing for themselves by living off the land and from the sea. This is a richly imagined community of specific individuals living in intimately drawn ways, in passage after passage of heartstoppingly beautiful prose. The people on the island have been living their lives unmolested since long before the Civil War, but the irascible elderly grandmother knows things are going to go wrong as soon as a well-intentioned white missionary establishes a school on the island. I

3 stars for the beautiful writing that Harding does so wonderfully, but unfortunately this book was a disappointment for me. The writing was so slow, if I had been reading a physical book it probably would've resulted in me giving up on it early on in the story. It took me so, so long to get through an audiobook, which is insanity to me. Unfortunately, it was just pretty unmemorable as a result.

*A big thank-you to Paul Harding, RB Media, and NetGalley for the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.*
A powerful novel on the uniquness of happiness and on the destruction brought about by powers that claim to have the right to decide for the others.
Based on real events, the book describes generations of inhabitants of an island, descendants of different cultures who create their own world away from the so-called civilisation. Their cosmos begins to disintegrate when the Honeys receive attention of the authorities seeking to implement social standards which vary from those of the islanders.
I felt for all characters and animals and was devastated when they met their fate ...
The narrator reads the book a little too fast in my opinion, as if he were in a hurry, however, the quality of his interpretation is high.

I will only give this book 2 stars for Edoardo Ballerini's wonderful narration. Edoardo could read me the riot act. I found the beginning of this book extremely confusing. The story is about a small island off the coast of Maine in the early 1900's. Where people of mixed race, or poor immigrants chose to make a home away from home on this little forgotten island. They inhabited the island for 6 generations. Mr. Ballerini was the best part about This Other Eden. The middle of the book picks up, then I felt like it drops you like a ton of bricks. Never finding out what happens to these inhabitants of this island who you do come to understand and like thanks to Edoardo smooth prose. If I was physically reading the hard copy I would have left it on my night stand at the bottom of my TBR pile. Definitely a very good choice for narrator Mr Ballerini or this book would have been 1 star and I would have never finished it. Sorry :(

Many thanks to NetGalley, WW Norton Company, and Recorded Books for gifting me a digital ARC of This Other Eden, written by Paul Harding and narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, in exchange for my honest review - 4.5 stars!

In 1792, former slave Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island off the coast of Maine where they could start their life. More than 100 years later, their descendants still inhabit the island along with varying groups of neighbors. But their lives are all changed when a missionary and then state officials enter their lives, forcing them off the island, some into asylums, and some just cast out.

Based on a true story at the height of the eugenics movement, people in charge who think they know better come in and ruin lives. This is a difficult subject to read about, especially because as a society we still are intolerant of anyone who is different. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, and the narrator's voice was perfect. Definitely gives you pause and makes you think, which is what reading is all about.

The audio book version of "This Other Eden" by Paul Harding is a well-produced and emotionally charged listening experience. The narrator does an excellent job of bringing the characters to life and capturing the lyrical quality of the prose. The tone of the narration is well-suited to the mood of the book, and the narrator's voice is clear and easy to listen to for extended periods of time.

One of the strengths of the audio book is the ability to experience the rich and evocative prose in a new way. The narrator's delivery enhances the emotional impact of the story, making the listener feel more connected to the characters and their experiences.

The audiobook of "This Other Eden" certainly sparked my interest to delve deeper into the history of Malaga Island and the interracial communities residing there during that time period. The flood that occurred on the island was especially intriguing to me.

However, some listeners may find the pace of the story to be slow and plodding. The heavy-handed themes and emotions may also turn off some listeners, as the author relies on melodrama rather than subtlety to convey them.

In conclusion, the audio book version of "This Other Eden" is a well-produced and emotionally charged listening experience. If you're a fan of literary fiction and enjoy audio books, this may be a good choice for you..

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC