Margot finds 8 unlabeled cassette tapes while cleaning out her grandmother’s home to sell after her death.  She takes her grandmother’s broken cassette player to a music shop for repair and finds her first love now owns it.  He is willing to repair the player if she agrees to allow him to listen to the tapes.  They are shocked to hear the voice of comedic legend Vivian Stone, telling her life story.  The book is written in duel timeline between Vivian’s story and Margot’s reactions while listening.  While Margot is inspired by Vivian’s tenacity and courage, she doesn’t understand why she made them and how they came to be in her grandmother’s possession.  What effect will these secrets have on Marto’s life and what she believes about herself and her family. 

What I liked:  The book is paced well. I found the story of Vivian and her friend Ruth to be very interesting. The things they endured and accepted  to reach their dreams are  so far removed from what women today would tolerate, but it is from their courage that things have and are changing. I was drawn in by the story and found it hard to turn off.  I listened to this book and the narration was very good.   The basic theme to both storylines is that sometimes life does not give you what you want, but if you persevere, that something else turns out to be even better than you dreamed.  

What I disliked:  In one part of Vivian’s story, references were made to skits form the I love Lucy show.  I found it confusing. Was this based on Lucille Ball’s life (it wasn’t)?  The author explains in the author’s notes that she modeled Vivan after realities faced by women in Old Hollywood and drew heavily from Lucile Ball, I love Lucy, Judy Garland, and Marilyn Monroe’s life.  However the exact details of the I Love Lucy skits caused confusion and took me out of the story line for a while.  I think that adding that real life show scene  detracted from the book and made me question what I was reading.  Other than that, and it was only one paragraph near the end of the book, I had no dislikes.