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    Daphne: A Novel
    Daphne: A Novel
    Daphne: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    Daphne: A Novel

    Written by Will Boast

    Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

    2.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Elegantly written and profoundly moving, this spellbinding debut affirms Boast's reputation as a "new young American voice for the ages" (Tom Franklin). Born with a rare (and real) condition in which she suffers degrees of paralysis when faced with intense emotion, Daphne has few close friends and even fewer lovers. Like her mythic namesake, even one touch can freeze her. But when Daphne meets shy, charming Ollie, her well-honed defenses falter, and she's faced with an impossible choice: cling to her pristine, manicured isolation or risk the recklessness of real intimacy. Set against the vivid backdrop of a San Francisco flush with money and pulsing with protest, Daphne is a gripping and tender modern fable that explores both self-determination and the perpetual fight between love and safety.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateFeb 6, 2018
    ISBN9781684410033
    Daphne: A Novel

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    Reviews for Daphne

    2.5/5

    18 ratings4 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Ridiculous, applaing, disgusting, distasteful. Awful prose, dialogue of illiterate juvenile level, characters that are less interesting than an unpainted wall. This filth has nothing to do with the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo. This is a low-quality toilet paper.P.S. Writers, please. Leave the Greek myths alone. They’re out of your miniscule caliber.P.P.S Male writers, if you don’t know how to write an interesting heroine, focus on a cowboy or an alien. You’ll do better. Possibly...
    • 3/5
      Daphne is twenty-nine, living in the San Francisco’s Mission district in an up-scale apartment that she regularly redecorates and photographs, unsuccessfully, for the magazine Interiors. She is smart (computer science and project management), ambitious (working in a challenging position for a big pharma company), has at least one sexy, cool friend (Brook - from Daphne’s home town in Indiana), and a caring mother who keeps tabs on her from a distance. But she’s also got something else, a condition that causes her to lose control of her muscles (to the point of effective catatonia) whenever she experiences heightened emotions. Laughter, tears, the caress of a loved one — anything can set her off. For Daphne it’s a condition she’s been dealing with since puberty. She’s got it under control. Mostly.Will Boast tells this story from Daphne’s perspective. In some ways it hearkens back to Ovid’s account of Daphne and Apollo (Daphne even takes up with a boyfriend name Ollie). But mostly it is more locally situated, both physically in San Francisco, and temporally, given the numerous references to world events that impinge on, especially, Ollie’s actions. It is punctuated by set-pieces that Boast elaborates at length. These are interspersed with numerous short chapters getting us from one set-piece to the next. It’s a curiously deliberate style. And it might account in part for why Daphne never fully comes to life, is never fully believable (at least from the first-person perspective). Daphne has a job which involves her in the distasteful end of medical research, which isn’t fully integrated into her story other than to provide her with a sufficiently high-paying position to warrant her lifestyle. And Ollie is even less believable, or at least less coherent. Characters here have a tendency to inexplicably make left-turns in order to drive the story forward.It’s a passable read if you don’t mind heavy handed allusions to trees (for Daphne). But for me it seems to not entirely work.
    • 2/5
      I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

      DAPHNE tries to say a lot, but seems to trip over itself as it shuffles towards its conclusion. Living is hard, and is especially so for anyone who literally "cannot even" with their emotions. (Admittedly a bit tongue-in-cheek here, but Cataplexy is actually pretty scary.)

      In a way, nothing really happens. At the same time, it's about the two steps forward, one step back dance we all do to just figure out how to get by in a world that has no time for us to figure our stuff out. This means we either take risks or shut ourselves off from people. (Spoiler: As expected, neither option works out very well for the characters in DAPHNE.)

      Boast offers a few moments of clarity and potential in this story, though not enough to make the lackluster journey worth it.
    • 4/5
      When thirteen-year-old Daphne was reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy she was overcome with the wild passion of teenage imagination; first a buzzing sensation lit her body and then she dropped the book and was unable to move. It happened, too, with sudden noises, fear, or strong emotions. She hid her affliction as best she could, for Dr. Bell's infinite tests brought no cure, only an unwelcome explanation: an autoimmune disorder had attacked part of her brain.Daphne became an expert in tightly controlling her life--no unexpected jolts allowed, no passion--just routine, and her mantra and calming images to ward off the attacks that left her immobile and vulnerable.Until into her life came a man, sweet and kind and patient. But can Daphne allow him into her life? I read this short novel in a day. The inspiration is the myth of Daphne, a nymph pursed by Apollo who was saved from his lust when the river god turned her into the Laurel tree.Apollo and Daphne by BerniniDaphne grapples with numerous challenges along with her disability. Her father died when she was only five. Her mother has finally met a man and is ready to move on with her life. Daphne feels responsibility to her support group members, her childhood best friend who takes big risks for business contacts, and to her staff at her job in a lab which uses dogs as test subjects studies in longevity. She tries to keep boundaries up and yet she would also like to free the dogs. When life seems to much to bear, she considers her options. Should she, like her support group friend, end it all? Return home, vanquished, admitting she failed at having a life of her own? Or accept that no one is perfect?Daphne by Will Boast is a beautifully written book that caught me by surprise. I understood Daphne's weariness at being 'different', having grown up with a mother with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis; Mom once asked me if I had been ashamed of her. For all the pain and isolation of Daphne's life, the disappointment that no one can ever really understand her reality, she is resilient. I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.