People Who Knew Me

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You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The author addresses the issues resulting from owning one’s past decisions when there is no forgiveness and developing the maturity to face the repercussions for the sake of one’s child. At best there are lines here and there that speak to her changing, and I have to give the author credit in finding a voice for Emily in the present that’s relatable.

Pike's whispering and quiet performance pulls in listeners and it's impossible not to find yourself eavesdropping on her private thoughts and feelings. What's more, Pike's performance as Emily/Connie is pitched to perfection, with it being hard at times to know whether to trust her narrative. After much internal struggle with her conscience, Emily plans to tell Drew that she is leaving him to commit to Gabe. Listeners will leave, because there are far more news offerings and because today’s preference is for angled reporting. She will be forced to confront her past so that her daughter will not be left on her own if she does not survive.First we follow Emily in her college years when she meets Drew and falls hopelessly and helplessly in love. Daniella’s adaptation and direction, along with a brilliant cast led by Rosamund and Hugh, bring you right into the mind of Connie and her battle with truth and lies. Spoiler (but not much of one – you work this out within minutes): Connie is in fact Emily Morris, who used 9/11 to fake her own death and ran away from New York to California. The first line, “People who knew me think I’m dead” grabbed me and kept me reading, cover to cover, in one sitting. Now, with her thirteen-year-old daughter Claire by her side, voiced by Isabella Sermon, Connie must confront her past so that her daughter will not be alone if she does not survive.

This is a series that will challenge your prejudices and invite you to ask, what would you do if you had the opportunity to run away? Kafka continued that words can be wielded like a pickax to shatter the frozen sea in the reader’s mind. Hooper’s searingly honest depiction of the challenges faced by those with these illnesses—and their caregivers—can make for uncomfortable reading at times. The world has changed utterly since the 19th century but the disconnection between the sexes remains. On her way to the airport, Emily Morris is leaving New York and everyone who knows her thinks she is dead.But now Connie/Emily has cancer, she’s going to have to come at least partly clean and find people who are related to her, or who knew her in the past. In addition to brilliant, curious, rigorous and impartial journalism from the production team, the series also uniquely harnessed the USPs of our live radio networks to drive podcast listening, and brought 5 Live and Radio 4 together in a joint release strategy.

She was forced to because of her disease and it’s aggressiveness, so ultimately I still see her as selfish as ever. Anyway, you’re right, in general I don’t think a MC has to be likable for a book to be good — but in certain narratives, like this one, for me I needed to be on Connie/Emily’s side by the end and I wasn’t.I had a few questions regarding tone – surely they wouldn’t be so blase about the body, even if they were drunk – but it was lovely to hear genuine south London accents, as well as listen to a drama that tackles the problems between men and women in an original way. Bolstered by her revelation to Paul, Connie takes Claire to the beach to tell her the truth about her Dad. We pick up the narrative 14 years later when Emily (who now goes by Connie Prynne) is given a breast cancer diagnosis. But when she is diagnosed with breast cancer she is forced to start addressing her past, a life she hasn’t told Claire or anyone about, a New York life, Emily’s life; a mess of a failed marriage, an affair and an accidental pregnancy that saw Emily fake her death post-9/11 and run away to LA. Kim Hooper has written a story that will make her readers think about some very essential things in life.

Choosing to set the novel during the time before 9/11 and using those events and some of Emily’s own decisions as a catalyst, the author advances the plot by focusing the action on Emily’s move from New York to California after the protagonist fakes her own death, pregnant with a baby that is not her husband’s but whose father has succumbed during the attacks on the World Trade Center. VERDICT While Emily's choices may seem selfish to some, the author does a great job of making them believable in this debut. She must decide how to explain her lies, her secrets, her selfish decisions – and ultimately her ‘widowed’ husband. Connie continues retelling her story to Paul, reliving the trauma of September 11th, and the events that lead up to her faking her own.

Their’s is a relationship that’s filled with love and here is an Emily who has changed – because after all, how could a selfish Emily have a child who loves her so completely like Claire does, right? Hooper slays stereotypes with an array of surprising observations like: “People think it’s easy to be anonymous in New York.