An Empty Cup
By: Sarah Price / Narrated By: Teri Clark Linden
Length: 8 hrs
Winds up being good but OH how excruciating there for, well, HOURS!
An Empty Cup starts with a nod to people dealing with depression and such all.
Uhm, THAT should’ve given me a heads up that Romance was NOT the main category for the book. Cuz I was, darn it all, reading waaaaay more into the Publisher’s Summary… as usual. I thought Reuben, the second chance love, was there in the wings, open arms, hearts and flowers, and that Rosanna was just so very broken that she couldn’t trust.
Uhm (again!), no. Turns out Reuben is a total turd.
The book takes place in an Amish community where Rosanna is a good God-fearing woman who does so much more for others than she’d even consider doing for herself. She’s a widow with two children but has been given attention by Reuben, a widower of fine standing in that community. When she takes on so much that she gets ill, she has to learn to trust again, to be open again.
Uhm (yet again!), illness? Just call it what it is: MAJOR CLINICAL DEPRESSION! And Reuben is one of the toads (no offense to toads) who just heaps more and more BS on her, is almost verbally abusive and is emotionally/mentally manipulative. Her son doesn’t hang out much; he’s at that age where Amish kids are given a chance to go out and do some experimenting with the Outside “English” World, and her daughter is a dismissive yet clingy sass-talking wretch whom I wanted to pop upside the head for her attitude and the way she treated her mother.
It’s an 8 hour book, but it’s HOURS of Rosanna taking sooooo much, then taking more, then taking even mooooore, then, in a scene straight from a Shirley Jackson short story, she takes The Ultimate Devastation that completely leaves her unable to do even one thing more. Teri Clark Linden’s narration is rather hollow, but her voice is VERY much in keeping with a severely depressed person. Her tones simply shriek: DEPRESSION!!!
So I sped my x1.25 listening speed to x1.5 cuz seriously! It was almost unendurable watching this kind and good woman get dumped on every step of the way. That she NEVER spoke a word for herself (and OBVIOUSLY the word ‘No’ was unknown to her), and that she threw herself into even more situations where she was destined to meet with unkindness (rotten neighbors!) had me about ready to DIE. I just haaaaad to speed my way through the book, through the story, until I got to a very good ending.
Because Rosanna learns a lot, and both Reuben and she are open to answers which may indeed come from the Outside World (which was a massive relief!). People view her in a different life, people lift a little finger, people DO things for her and show understanding.
So An Empty Cup is a great book about how even those with no genetic predisposition can find themselves overwhelmed into a state of clinical depression. There did wind up being a sense of romance, of sweetness, even tho’ there were major continuing crises—it’s just that by the end, Rosanna has tools for dealing with all of it, and somebody has her back.
>PHEW!<
Cuz I was really, really, REALLY worried about the story for a very long time there!
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