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The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

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The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

By: Anna North
Narrated by: Amanda Dolan, Roger Wayne
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Summary

Who is the real Sophie Stark?

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is the story of an enigmatic film director, told by the six people who loved her most.

Brilliant, infuriating, all-seeing and unknowable, Sophie Stark makes films said to be more like life than life itself. But her genius comes at a terrible cost: to her husband, to the brother she left behind, and to an actress who knows too much.

With shades of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, A Visit from the Goon Squad and Where'd You Go, Bernadette, it combines a uniquely appealing sensibility with a compulsively alluring plot.

Read by Amanda Dolan and Roger Wayne.

©2015 Anna North (P)2015 Tantor Contemporary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Celebrity
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Sophie Stark is an awkward young woman without any social graces who almost accidentally becomes a film director. Despite not being a good director, she becomes famous in a certain way. She is always emotionally reliant on someone, often her brother. She gets a break with a commercial studio which is willing to put money behind her next film if she uses a famous female lead. But she chooses a less well-known actor instead and so has a far smaller budget, meaning she has to make some major accommodations to the production.
I confess that I found the film-making aspects less than believable, but the contrivance of Stark’s character didn’t really match with that of a director in any event. I’ve not known any actual directors (well, film directors) so what do I know. Amateur theatre directors, on the other hand, work far harder than Stark ever does. So the simplified film world only requires a novella length tale to encompass its plot. As a ‘taster’ of such a world, and such people, it is good enough if your expectations aren’t too high.
The narrators each cover several characters in the plot. Each character is announced at the start of their section, but there is no other differentiation to speak of.
I’m not too enamoured of this story in its individual parts, but it somehow hangs together better than I can explain. Being a film fan, this did scratch that itch in a minor, B movie way.

Somehow better than the sum of its parts.

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The life and death of Sophie is captured through the tales of those around her and they reveal a gutsy young film maker who is as intriguing as she is quirky.

This is a very human tale and the character of Sophie is so 3 dimensional you feel you've actually met in real life. To say she is complicated is to simplify a personality full of contradictions and foibles.

This is a compelling listen. It is a trip inside the head of a creative yet equally tormented mind from the outside in. It is not always comfortable in Sophie's head with the insecurities and bold, brash ambition but the plot feels genuine. It stays with you long after the narrator stops.

Wow, what a character

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This started so well, the first chapter was great. Alison’s story is more interesting than Sophie’s in my opinion.
Sophie came off as a narcissist and I really didn’t get anything out of hearing about her life. I don’t think it helped that the readers were a little monotone and when the male reader voiced Sophie he sounded a little like the men playing women in the film White Chicks.

Probably should have known better having seen that Lena Dunham rates this book

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Good story ,which I/we ( partner listening car journey) very confused about who was talking .
Think reading book would have been preferable ,so could see each chapter ,different character,
Narrators in this audio book not good enough at separating characters ,Amanda Dolan just slightly better than Roger Wayne ,....we struggled to know which character talking & had to keep rewinding , to understand which character talking now .
So ..conclusion = might listen to another Anna North book ,but probably not listen to Amanda Dolan or Roger Wayne ( if more than one character ) again.

Good book ,disappointed narration

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