The Past Is Red

By: Catherynne M. Valente

Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins

Length: 5 hrs

Publisher's summary

The future is blue - endless blue...except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown.

Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.

But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.

©2021 Catherynne M. Valente (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Perfect narration!

So, this is weird. It reads as if it were a book for middle-schoolers, but with adult language. The themes are appropriate for middle school, the setting is decidedly middle-schoolish, and the length of the book is what you would expect for middle school. Overall great book, I really enjoyed it. It seemed like a cross between kids’ and adults’ world views. Is that intentional given the themes of the book? I hope so. I will re-read it sometime to truly understand the shifting timeline—I sometimes missed when she was speaking in the present, versus the past. The audio narration was absolutely perfect, I really enjoyed that.

a good sad story. nice quick listen

I enjoyed it and don't regret the credit spent.
this novel is pretty sad so be prepared for that. other than that I enjoyed the science fiction of it. hopefully things don't turn out that way but lol it feels possible.

Beautiful and heartbreaking

Cathrynne Valente creates a post apocalyptic world like no other. A place where most people despair and yet we meet the most pure and wonderful character, Tetley Abednego. She is the sort of person I wish I could be, she’s been through hell but still views the world with joy and wonder. Tetley is the sort of friend that I think everyone needs in their life. Penelope Rawlins does a masterful job of voicing all the disparate characters from Tetley herself to each minor character she encounters each is brilliant.
This is a book you can’t help being enthralled by and won’t be able to stop thinking about.

It's the most beautiful f**kwit junk there is!

This book is so inspiringly positive in its take on our bleak future that it might surprise you. I found myself purposefully not trying to figure out the twists or guessing at any hints of what was coming next because I wanted to let this great author just tell her story.

Brilliant

This novella was a gift, a remedy for life's absurdity as we all work through our grief on our dying ecology. Thank you for a momentary vacation out of the morass and destruction of the now. This narrator deserves many accolades. It was a magical journey.

The most perfectly perfect book a F**kwit could ever want.

There is nothing in all the world more sweet, more rewarding, or more terrible than the last moment of a beautiful book. This is my MOST beautiful book.

The narrator is perfect. The story is soul-smashingly perfect. The pacing and the language and the poetry of this book is hatefully, perfectly perfect.

If you’re worried that it isn’t worth a whole credit for a short novella, you’re wrong. The Past Is Red is worth a hundred million billion credits. Spend one, get this book. Listen to it. ACTUALLY listen to it.

If, by the end, you haven’t fallen in Love a dozen times, if you haven’t cried and laughed and felt ashamed and alone and alive…

…you’re probably a F**ckwit.



X Life Before Tetley X

Cat Valente always astounds

This is a book I'm going to have to listen to again, and then again, to fully understand all the feels it makes me feel. That can only be a good thing, right?
Penelope Rawlins brings it all to life so viscerally--good luck wrapping your head around Tetley's reality.