A marvel of a book.' - Washington Post Book WorldĪnn Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis. National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler, read by Ari Fliakos, Maggie Hoffman, Scott Shepherd, Scott Sowers, Gary Wilmesīuy Bel Canto from Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, NC.If you liked Bel Canto, you might also like my reviews of I highly recommend this if you enjoy character-driven books but don’t go into it expecting a lot of action. She didn’t only have to tackle straightforward Spanish or Japanese accents, she tackled the accents of a Swiss man speaking Spanish or a Spanish-speaker attempting Japanese. She didn’t worry too much about different voices for different characters, but she did give the impossible accents a phenomenal try. The narrator, Anna Fields, did an amazing job. Among the adults, the timid priest, the opera singer, the translator, the businessmen, all bond in unforeseen ways. The elders, even among the hostages, come to view the young revolutionaries fondly, almost as younger family members or children. They all come from wildly different backgrounds but they come together and find their common ground. The relationships that grow among these groups who should be enemies are amazing. Even the group of businessmen and politicians discover and nurture their hidden talents and passions now that they have time away from their everyday responsibilities. As time passes, it turns out that there are some amazingly talented youngsters in the group. The teenagers are mostly uneducated and they’ve never been given a real chance at life.

The revolutionaries consist of three “generals” and a group of teenagers they’ve found and trained in the jungle. There isn’t much action but there is a lot of character development and relationship building. It isn’t about the politics of the country or anything like that it’s about the people and the possibilities within them. That description makes the book sound like something it isn’t. I liked this a lot more than I expected to. Just as Roxanne finishes her last song, armed revolutionaries take the entire party hostage. Hosokawa has no intention of building a factory in the poor country, but when they told him that his favorite opera soprano, Roxanne Coss, would be performing for him, he had to accept the invitation. In an unnamed South American country, the government is hosting a birthday party for a powerful Japanese businessman, Mr.

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