Swan Song

Elin Hildebrand has been one of my very favorite writers, who’s always left me with such an absolute sense of wonder, contentment and pleasure after having had the pleasure of immersing myself in her brilliantly crafted and talented work for years she’s been enabling my guiltiest healthiest pleasure of reading yet this book, aptly named Swan Song is said to be her very last. However, it was my misunderstanding that last year the book she released and I had personally signed by her was thought to be her very last and I far more enjoyed that novel than I did this one. I feel it fell short in its entirety particularly in some of Nantucket’s most beloved characters leaving them with disingenuous and dismissive positions to take their rightful place, reminding us why we may love them or love to dislike them and give them the opportunity to make their very last act one that they deserved and that would be remembered and true to their characters complex and dynamic nature. I missed the mentioning of music in which always seemed to make the scenes feel more in depth and kept our attention and emotions flowing with the characters as they experienced their own emotional reactions. While there were some well known single songs mentioned, they just seemed to miss the mark that the previous ones paired with scenes had driven out feelings that were more than just a fleeting moment but was so on par with the circumstances in which she paired the particular song with it took our hearts and our vulnerability to a place we once felt as younger adults or back to a place where we’d experienced something similar reminding us that a simple song can bring us right back to the very moment of when we heard it who we were with, the sights smells sounds and the feelings we were grappling with. Elin had a gift for style, design, exemplary taste in her music and a deep appreciation for her fellow aesthetes and their commonalities in sharing their natural true love for the beautiful and the natural awestriking stunning backdrop of which this world has always had an abundance of if only we paid attention to it more closely and learned to be grateful for the freedom of such miraculous wonderment surrounding us all.

Hard to get into and slow to start

Not her best work, entreating enough. The ending was the worst part tho 😔

I truly love this book!

My least favorite book by this author. Scattered and discombobulated storylines that did not tie together well at all. I am sorry that the author’s charming Nantucket stories ended this way - arson and death and prison, oh my! I also did not appreciate the author’s reading of the final chapter. It disrupted the ending and is not an audiobook voice.

Incredibly shallow

✨Read in 4 hours.✨ It swallows you up into the delicious world of Nantucket with twists & turns at every corner.

Absolutely loved the book but sad to see this Elin Hilderbrand ‘s book. I have enjoyed all her books. Hopefully in the future she writes again