Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar, narr. by Harsh Nayyar, Annapurna Sriram, Bernard White, Nick Choksi, Rita Wolf

I get some of my audio books through Audible, mostly Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, and other audios of books I’ve already read. My plan was to get all the Harry Potter ones and then cancel my account, but sometimes when I want something to listen to, it has a long wait list at the library, so for now I still have my Audible account and with it the Originals — I get 2 Audible Original productions per month for free.

Until I listened to Evil Eye, I’d avoided the Originals. I didn’t know what they were and didn’t care, but Evil Eye convinced me otherwise.

Genre:

Thriller; Supernatural

Series:

N/A

Pubbed:

May 2019

Goodreads summary:

Pallavi is an aspiring writer living in California. Her mother, Usha, is thousands of miles away in Delhi – and obsessed with finding her daughter a husband.

In Madhuri Shekar’s ingenious Evil Eye, hilarious back-and-forth via phone and social media takes a shocking, supernatural twist when Pallavi meets the perfect man – leading to a climactic showdown that will leave listeners on the edges of their seats. (Goodreads)

My thoughts:

The story is about an Indian family. Pallavi, the daughter, lives in California as an aspiring writer. She talks to her mother, who’s in India, daily. Her mother, Usha, keeps pestering her daughter to marry and often tries to set up Pallavi with a good, well-connected Indian man. But when Pallavi finds such a guy, her mother gets a bad feeling about him and urges her daughter not to pursue a relationship with the guy. This, however, confuses Pallavi and places a strain on her relationship with her mother. But Usha trusts her instincts despite what her husband says and Pallavi believes and follows them to save Pallavi.

I had no idea what to expect when I started listening to this story. At first, I thought it would be boring and tiresome since it quickly became obvious that the entire story would be told by phone conversation between the characters. I wondered how/if that would work well. It did. (And that was a silly thought for me to have after reading To Night Owl From Dogfish that’s told entirely through emails between the characters.) It was such a fun, hilarious, entertaining read. I started and finished it in a day at work (it’s not long). I walked around with it on in my ears because I couldn’t bear to break from it.

I like how the story slowly builds and we slowly get an idea of the relationship between Pallavi and her parents (I could relate although I’m not nagged to go get a husband). I like that the danger is subtly introduced and that we were misled at first about whether or not to believe Usha, and I was surprised at the supernatural turn the story took. It all worked for me though. I was hooked and entertained and wanted to start another story with the same cast of characters.

Overall: ★★★★☆

It was fun, and I highly recommend it if you want something quick to listen to.

Buy | Borrow | Bypass

Because I don’t think you can Borrow it, but it is free (I think) if you have an Audible account.

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