I finally grabbed another audiobook from NetGalley! I’ve been meaning to, so I finally logged in and found Statistically Speaking by Debbie Johnson. The cover was cute, but the description of the book made it sound like it wasn’t too cute…more dramatic than cute. So, I went for it. Read on to see if I liked it (spoiler alert…the answer is definitely yes).
The Summary
As a high school history teacher, Gemma Jones loves the certainty of the past: specific names, solid dates, proven statistics. Maybe that’s because her own past resembles a jumbled-up sock drawer, one where it’s impossible to find a match.
On paper, Gemma’s life is just like any other successful, single thirty-something. Her students adore her. She lives in a cute beach-side cottage next door to the world’s sweetest neighbor, Margie. And she’s definitely caught the eye of Karim, the resident hot PE teacher at her school. But every day of her life she can’t get one thing out of her mind: the baby she gave up for adoption when Gemma was just sixteen years old.
This is the year that Baby—the only name Gemma has for her little girl—will turn eighteen. And it might be the year she actually meets her daughter face-to-face.
My Review
This book (and audiobook) has so much to love. Debbie Johnson is one heck of a writer! Sometimes, I wish I was one of those reviewers that comes up with all the big fancy words to describe books…but then I remember that I set out to NOT do that. So, I’ll try to explain what I love about Johnson’s writing in plain, uncomplicated English.
Here goes.
Johnson’s writing is just so…smooth. Her descriptions are detailed but not overdone, everything has a flow to it that made sense to me, and the characters are believable. There’s also a lot of wit, which I really appreciate.
Let’s take a peek at an excerpt. Here’s the opening paragraphs of chapter 11:
The Royal Albert dock is glittering in the early evening dusk. Lights from the busy bars and restaurants are dancing shadows across the grand colonnades and the covered walkways. And the wind is whipping up the dark water–eddies bumping the moored boats up against the dark walls, flags snapping, bells tinkling. It’s been a moody day with dark gray skies and wind that made the sand howl along the beach this morning. It is almost October, and it is showing.
We are a small and battered group, fighting the breeze as we walk. The students are chattering and excited, still on a high from our tour of the old dock. Discovered and excavated during the construction of the new shopping center, it was built in 1715, a precursor to the grand venue we are now exploring.
The docks have always been a favorite place of mine, the sense of immense history, of the coming and going of humanity over hundreds of years. Of the trade, the hope, the dreams. The sometimes dark past, the constant change and evolution. Of course, I also enjoy the numbers: the statistics of space and time. 23 million bricks, 3 football pitches, cast iron columns that are 25 feet high.
These passages, when read aloud by narrator Louise Williams, were just plain captivating. I loved them.
Now, our main character, Gemma, is also an object of my affection. Having gone through a pretty traumatic childhood, she allows one night of poor decision making and ends up pregnant. We meet her about 18 years after giving birth to the child and promptly giving her up for adoption. Although broken in some ways, she still manages to have a decent (although quite sequestered) life as a school teacher.
Gemma has the same problem as a lot of women protagonists seem to have in not being able to properly let anyone into her life. However, she’s unique enough to make that totally okay in my book. She clearly has some neurodivergence in her love of statistics and counting things, and can remember numbers and dates easily, making her an awesome team member for trivia night. At any rate, she was super likable and I was very much in her corner.
After finishing the book, I read a few reviews written by others, and they mention a bit of a slowness in the middle of the book. I didn’t notice anything like that–probably because I was so wrapped up in the beautiful writing and just swept up in the whole experience of the audiobook.
Overall, I highly recommend this audiobook! The story itself is heartwarming without being cheesy, there’s a lovely friendship with the older lady next door (and did I mention she has a cute dog?), a love interest, a very loud yoga fart, a very charming student, and more. I fully enjoyed the whole thing and recommend it to anyone who likes heartwarming and slightly quirky fiction like Remarkably Bright Creatures.
A full 5 stars from me!
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