A Handful of Happiness: How a Prickly Creature Softened a Prickly Heart
By: Massimo Vacchetta, Antonella Tomaselli / Translated By: Jamie Richards / Narrated By: James Anderson Foster / Introduction: Hillary Huber
Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
Unfortunate, tho’ not fatal, narration does kinda sorta mar a PERFECTLY WONDERFUL story! Loved it!
I get it, really I do: James Anderson Foster has won multiple awards, and he’s been noted for having “clear, consistent, and well-enunciated” performances… so he’s s’posed to be awesome, right? Wellllll, it’s that overly clear, consistent, perfect-enunciation that is the biggest weakness in A Handful of Happiness. And tho’ my last run-in with Hillary Huber had her phoning in her performance, I doooo know she’s absolutely rocked out many a narration, leaving her as a favorite of mine (Seriously? Her performance of Concussion was so fantastic, and truly, I’ll get to reviewing it soon as it’s football season now…), and I really wish she’d done the entire honors for this audiobook, EVEN if it meant a female doing a male’s memoir.
Cuz see, Foster’s smoooooth voice, his precision, had me thinking I was listening to a baseball game being called over the radio; this was NOT the down and dirty, in the weeds, voice of a man flailing with newfound purpose in life, with dealing with life, poor health, even death.
Italian veterinarian Massimo Vacchetta starts out as a man, divorced, kinda at odds with himself and with the world. His priorities are waaaay off—He’s a stickler for his personal appearance—but subbing at a clinic, he finds a baby hedgehog has been dropped off. She’s but a tiny hairless thing, and the day after meeting her, he opens the clinic doors to hear the most lonely and piteous of wails. And immediately he sees all that this tiny creature and he have in common: Lost, bereft of love, with nothing, no place to turn to for help or affection, or even sustenance. And so Ninna the hedgehog enters his life as he discovers how the prickly little thing can be so enchanting as they both struggle for her life.
He’s smitten, tho’ he’s often clueless and has to desperately seek out knowledge from others; and one hedgehog rescued becomes another hedgehog rescued becomes yet another coming into his life. He suddenly dreams of opening a rescue center, wallows in the nitty gritty of details and permits, and his volunteer work leads him to hedgies who need soooo much extra help, or who simply are too injured to be set back into the wild.
This was a fanTAStic story, chock-full of heart, and wisdom, and it would’ve even had MAJOR tears requiring tissues as the writing and the translation were so very good, and Massimo is insightful, and oh so open with wearing that big ol’ heart of his on his sleeve. There were many times I groaned but chortled out loud cuz work with the creatures put him in many predicaments (A hedgie gets out of its box, and he’s left to unloading everything from his car, bit by bit, all with bemused bystanders wondering who this crazy guy is; he’s waiting hours for a doctor’s appointment where he has to dash out to feed a baby hedgie, change out hot water bottles, all with bemused bystanders AGAIN wondering who this crazy guy is!). Yes, Massimo’s stories, his deep love for all he comes in contact with (And this guy has no Stop. Noooo. He instantly opens his heart!), is so inCREDibly moving. When he ponders setting his first love Ninna free, I had tears in my eyes…
… it’s just that I truly would’ve sobbed, grabbed tissues to pat down streaming tears… were it not for Foster’s play-by-play game-calling tones. No disrespect meant, and he did put his oomph into narrating this, but really: I woulda completely LOST it with braying sobs several times here, something I dearly love to do in a good audiobook, but I kinda had to just sit back and feel the lump in my throat rather than be moved to really let loose.
AWEsome story, and I see other audiobook lovers didn’t find the narration to get in the way of the book’s heart, its oh so grand soul. I LOVED this book; loved Massimo as he centers his life and discovers what he’s meant to do, going from being the Novice to being the Person You Called When you need help with a sick or injured hedgehog.
If you can be like those lovers? Then you’re in for the sweetest most cuddlesome and spirit-raising 4 hours you’ve ever had…!
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