This Is How It Really Sounds

by Stuart Archer Cohen

“A smart, wide-ranging novel . . . a timely and provocative story about money, cultural power, and identity in the digital age.” —Tom Perrotta, author of The Leftovers

In the lurid nightclubs of modern Shanghai, infamous expat financier Peter Harrington is suddenly confronted by his past. Investors he has ruined, looming federal investigations, and a remote but alluring woman all converge on one hallucinatory night that ends in the labyrinth of an ancient Chinese garden. On the other side of the ocean, chasing the last vapors and diminishing sexual returns of fame in Los Angeles, faded rock star Pete Harrington is bankrupt. With no band, no hits, and no money, he finds a last flash of brilliance that sets him on an absurd and epic quest for revenge. And in a small town in Alaska, legendary extreme skier Harry Harrington lives far from the fame that had courted him—but still yearns for one more dangerous run on a remote, unconquered slope.

Stuart Archer Cohen's This Is How It Really Sounds explores the seductive power of the Other Life—the life you once lived or still dream of living—and what happens when you finally grasp it.

Genres: Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2015

About the author

Invisible World (Reganbooks/HarperCollins 1998)
The Stone Angels (Orion, 2003)
The Army of the Republic (St. Martin's Press, Sept 2008)

Born Cincinnati 1958.
Walnut Hills High School
Johns Hopkins Univ.
Columbia University, 1981
Moved to Juneau, Alaska 1982
Opened Invisible World, 1985 (Wool and Alpaca)
China, 1991, (Cashmere and Silk.)
Closed Invisible World, 1996
Published first novel, Invisible World, 1998
Ran out of money, 2001, Re-opened Invisible World, 2002
Published 17 Stone Angels in England, 2003, later translated into 9 other languages.
The Army of the Republic, St. Martin's Press, September 2008.
This is How it Really Sounds, St. Martin's, 2014

Reviews

[Jessica]

This book is vile propaganda for living a dull and undistinguished yet cozy domestic life instead of doing something ambitious, and as a person who chose option (a) I did not fail to appreciate that.


Also, not without its flaws but pretty ridiculously entertaining, at least for me; I didn't really put it down until I was done, and it's not short. A sentimental caper novel, basically, with fun stuff like extreme skiing and Wall Street villainy, and some memorably lovely scenes set in Shanghai and Alaska that are still clear in my mind weeks later. I picture the ideal audience for this book being an overgrown, middle-aged bro, but that's not me (well, not the bro part) and I was definitely entertained.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific! Clever eloquence ....lots of fun....and serious thinking!

The plot is exciting with unexpected twists....yet the plot itself is only part of this story. The set-up at the 'beginning' -and the final pages at the 'end' - tie this novel together like a beautiful Holiday package with a sparkling bow on top.

Pete Harrington, (rock star), goes to Shanghai to find Peter Harrington (financier), to "kick-the-crap" out of him. Pete is broke --and blames Peter. Peter Harrington cooked up some sort of bond fund and sold out for three million. Then he bet against it, and when the crash came he walked away with another four million. (betting against the people who just bought him out).

Before Pete takes his trip to Shanghai to find Peter --he must get in shape to KICK-THE-CRAP- out of Peter. He hires a man named Charlie (retired CIA assasin), to help him get in shape. Its been twenty years since Pete has been at the top of his game. He is out of work -out of money -out of shape. He no longer has a manager, a stylist, an assistant. He has an ex-wife -a few friends. His friend Duffy thinks Pete is "flippin crazy" to fly all the way to Shanghai just to find Peter to kick his ass. (and so do we-the reader --but we are laughing)

Pete is getting his old power feeling back --writing songs - doing pushups - working with an exercise trainer -ready to confront his man Peter! (wealthy financier),
The majority of the story seems as if its about Pete and Peter...

Yet, there is this 'feeling', that something deeper is going on....(maybe this story is about something else)????
Here's a quote about half way through this novel, (and there are more hidden messages), which begins to set the reader wondering.....

"And strangely, maybe because he was working on a song about that house, he saw himself impossibly, so very impossibly, sitting by a fire with a son and wife and outside all around just snow, and snow, and snow. Some life he'd never get a chance to live, that didn't make sense when you're sitting in an office on Wilshire Boulevard that has an Oompa Loompa costume in the reception."


Stuart Archer Cohen has a distinct style --'refreshing & exciting'. Ambitious & remarkable novel.
Highly Recommended!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this...
Many thanks and congrats. to the author!

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 4.5 stars.

I read Stuart Archer Cohen's The Army of the Republic a few years ago and was tremendously impressed, so when St. Martin's Press offered me a Kindle copy of his latest novel in exchange for a review I was happy to accept.

Looking over my review of the earlier novel, I see I took special notice of how, as the story unfolded, Cohen tied the lives and actions of three quite different characters together. Cohen has a gift for this sort of thing and it's on full display in This Is How It Really Sounds. Here, the three characters are men with similar names: Harry Harrington, an extreme skier; Pete Harrington, a rock star; and Peter Harrington, a Wall Street bandit. The relationship between the skier and the rock star is clear from the beginning; the connection between the hedge fund millionaire and the rock star becomes clear a few chapters in; later we learn of a tie between the skier and the hedge fund guy; later still ... well, I'll just say the novel's conclusion goes in a direction I did not anticipate, one both profound and sublime, reminding me a bit of David Mitchell, the king of intertwined lives, and his masterpiece Cloud Atlas.

As with Cloud Atlas -- and Cohen's own The Army of the Republic -- the stories of the individual characters and the events that bring them together are damned interesting, tense and suspenseful in many cases, all full of convincing detail. The characters, too, not just the three Harringtons but the men and women who play supporting roles, are intensely relatable (even the hedge fund asshole, whom we have every reason to hate yet come to like).

A theme repeats itself throughout the novel: a yearning for a simpler life, close to the land, enfolded within the love of a tight-knit family. A character will glimpse an isolated house: a farmhouse in a Pennsylvania field, a Chinese home of enclosed gardens in a quiet Shanghai neighborhood, a Swiss chalet in a mountain meadow, a mountain cabin in Alaska. The character will long for the life the house seems to promise. The character will feel the urge to approach the house and knock on the door. The character, eventually, will.

I found all this quite moving, and I finished this remarkable book on a high. I should explain that a 4.5 star rating is about as high as I go on the Goodreads scale. Call my star ratings idiosyncratic; I reserve 5 stars for the messiah of books. This one comes close.

Note: the e-version I was sent, which I converted to the Kindle file format with NetGalley, was formatted correctly and almost typo-free: the exception was a superfluous three-letter word, "lai," randomly inserted into sentences here and there. I quickly learned to ignore it and it didn't affect my enjoyment of the book.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I'm going to skip the summary because you can get that anywhere.)

My favorite thing about Cohen's books is the way he is able to show you how broad the world is by showing you the individual worlds of his characters. He has the ability to make you feel like you are in that person's life, seeing their triumphs and frustrations from their own perspective. The way he layers people and places and times is mesmerizing and evocative.

The way that each of the men named Peter Harrington moves through life, trying to find his way into the perfect life that always seems to be just out of reach no matter what he does, and the way that their lives touch each other's is masterfully done. Their personal quests to have a real and meaningful life take them each in very different directions, each trying to attain that goal by different means, and each of them is lucky enough to have people enter their lives at the right time to redirect a course that must inevitably lead to failure, forcing them to find a new course to follow.

I was reminded several times of Cohen's (gorgeous) previous novel, Invisible World, and Clayton's quest to settle the empire. That is precisely what each of these men is trying to do. And I loved that the ceramic coffee cup with the two green pinstripes around the rim appeared again. There are so many beautiful things in Cohen's books, set like jewels in the script.

This book is an expansive and yet very personal experience, and it is very much worth your time!

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an opportunity to read an advance copy of This is How it Really Sounds. I'm not sure that it's doing the author or the reader any favour to suggest that this is the next great American novel as some other reviewers have done on Goodreads. I suggest reading this novel without any particular anticipation and taking the story as it comes on its own terms. And approaching it that way -- without any specific expectations -- it's an enjoyable and clever read. It's the story of three men called Peter Harrington. One is an extreme skier, one is a middling rock star and one is the founder of a fallen investment scheme. All three are somewhere in middle age; they have had fame and falls from grace. Their lives have intersected in various ways -- in one particular way that is central to the book. This is not a book with a linear plot, but rather it explores the lives and inner thoughts of these three Peter Harringtons -- and a few other characters along the way. It deals with their intense drive for fame, fortune and thrills -- a drive punctuated with disappointment and the desire for an elusive simpler life. I don't usually like categorizing books according to gender, but this book feels like it has a very male sensibility. I can't say that I identified with the struggles of the three Peters -- but it's a well written, well structured and thoughtful book and I definitely enjoyed reading it. I will be curious to see the broader reception once it is published later this month.

[Pam Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book! I love the concept of jumping into and exploring the lives of three people with the same name. The characters do come alive and their adventures are intriguing. My favorite thing about this book is that it makes you think and explore your own life. A good read.

[Kevin Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is as close to the Great American Novel as anything I've read in recent memory. Cohen sticks this often-attempted-but-rarely-landed jump by creating three characters who share a common name (Peter Harrington) and passion for skiing, leading them down paths that intersect in unlikely ways and ultimately converge in a remote Alaskan town. On the surface, each Pete Harrington has little in common; one being a washed-up rock star, another a reviled Wall Street banker seeking anonymity in Shanghai after bilking $800 million from his fund's investors, and the third an extreme skier who once was regarded as the best in the world. But as the reader gets to know the three Petes, brilliantly brought to life through their unique voices and motivations, it becomes apparent that each has a yearning for the "Other Life" (Cohen's concept of the American Dream, symbolized by a glamorous advertisement in New Yorker magazine) that's impeding his happiness.

The novel hits full stride when rocker Pete, facing bankruptcy after losing millions in banker Pete's investment fund, embarks on a bizarre quest to avenge the bilked investors by travelling to Shanghai with intent to assault the banker. The author's depiction of present-day Shanghai, along with flashbacks to the way the city was at the time of the Communist revolution (as seen through the eyes of rocker Pete's security consultant) are beautifully rendered. And the way in which Cohen contrasts the image of the Other Life with an equally-tantalizing vision of a simple life lived in a country cabin is brilliant and haunting.

This novel is a masterpiece that both entertains and resonates with profundity.

[Lorilin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Is How It Really Sounds is a book about three men who share the name Peter Harrington. "Harry" Harrington is a former extreme skier, Pete Harrington a washed up rock star, and Peter Harrington is basically a Bernie Madoff-type who actually gets away with it. Having the three main characters connected by their shared same name was a creative twist--one that could have felt forced or heavy-handed, but never did. And I really loved all three Peter Harringtons. They were so different from each other, but their connections to one another felt completely believable and organic.

Truthfully, this book didn't progress how I thought it would at all. After reading Part One, I figured I had a pretty good idea where Cohen was going with everything. So when he made such an abrupt shift in plot beginning in Part Two, I was really, genuinely surprised. But, amazingly, that wasn't the end of it; the story kept reinventing itself, with Cohen frequently adding new angles in plot or new relationship dynamics between characters in unexpected and engaging ways. It finally came to such a satisfying and successful conclusion by naturally completing Harry's story from Part One.

Overall, I just loved it. From start to finish, I thought this book was refreshingly unpredictable, imaginative, and unique. Cohen is definitely on my radar now. I hope this book does well for him, and I look forward to reading his next one.

[Steven A Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredible! Stuart Archer Cohen deserves to be mentioned as one of the great literary voices of this century. As with his previous works, this novel has a clear, powerful voice, sends a well crafted message wrapped in literary excellence and is written with a ferocity and elegance that can now be known as classic Cohen writing. This is an engaging and thought provoking coming of age story that you'll never forget and may change your view on life forever as all great novels do. I would recommend it to any genre reader with all my heart and philosophical soul!

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second or third book by Stuart Cohen that I've read, and it makes me want to read and reread all of them. The environments are so richly detailed and interwoven into the story that they are as important to the narrative as the characters. Read it. Read them all.

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel set in Alaska, California, and Shanghai (the three Harringtons…)

This Is How It Really Sounds is a very interesting book – and one to which I have returned in my mind several times over the past few days since I finished reading it. The three central characters all have the surname Harrington. There is Harry Harrington – a former top of the range extreme skier now based in Juneau, Alaska (which, incidentally, is where Stuart Archer Cohen lives…). Then there is Pete Harrington, a Los Angeles based faded middle aged pop star intent on reviving his career. And, finally, there is Peter Harrington, a disgraced New York financier who escaped with millions as his investment fund failed. Not a lot, you may think, in common… But you would be wrong. The book traces the very different, but sometimes overlapping, lives of each of them. Pete lost money in Peter’s investment fund failure – and is determined to gain revenge. He heads off to Shanghai (where Peter is involved in a scheme to sell US utilities to the Chinese) to secure this. Harry works in a hardware store in Juneau, to where a plane diverting winter storm brings both Pete and Peter. Portions of their lives coincide and overlap… And there is more. A somewhat ethereal Alpine house, that seems to move its location with almost every chapter, is key to each of them in finding his own ‘homecoming’.

In TripFiction locational terms the book is a great read. Stuart Arthur Cohen brilliantly captures the essential essence of each of his three locations. He is as completely at ease with the false bonhomie and double speak of Los Angeles, as he is with the excitement and thrust of modern day Shanghai, and the wilderness of Alaska. His description, in particular, of the final extreme ski escapade in Alaska is awe-inspiring as, indeed, is his writing of the ecstasy-fuelled night in Shanghai when Peter ends up in the labyrinth of an ancient Chinese garden with a mysterious girl. He clearly knows each place very well. This knowledge comes, I imagine, from his parallel business career, as owner of Invisible World – a trading company importing into the US wool, silk, alpaca, and cashmere from Asia and South America. He is fluent in Mandarin (and, incidentally for this book, Spanish…)

I suspect, largely from my knowledge of Stuart’s previous works, that This Is How It Really Sounds is also intended as a satirical and political novel – not just as a good read. He clearly has little time for either the financial and banking fraternity, or for the falseness of Los Angeles. And the selling off of US Utilities to the Chinese (as Peter was planning in Shanghai) is something against which he has campaigned… He is much more comfortable and at home in the wilds of Alaska. Extreme skiing and the outdoor life is his passion.

This Is How It Really Sounds is a book that evokes many emotions – and it is a very worthwhile read. I enjoyed it.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last book I read by Cohen I liked because I liked the content of the story. It had a lot of flaws, I thought, so I was not very excited to read this one. Cohen is a compelling storyteller, though, so once you start it is hard to put this book down. This follows three different people named Pete Harrington who all represent "Other Lives" of the others. The dialogue in this was much sharper than Army of the Republic and it made the characters that much more enjoyable. For the most part, though, it was just a good story, about how these three people that have very limited commonality all end up interacting and weaving in and out of each other's lives. The final few pages, though, really put it together and ended up being almost transcendent. That sounds hokey, but it really was a sublime ending.

[Fussnik · Rating 5 out of 5]

this author has a remarkable voice. He writes a book that on the last page hits you with its delicacy and heartfelt depth. it travels the globe, seems to be about fame and money. Love it. read it. It's what a book should be.

[Paul Downs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this 4 stars because I enjoyed every word. The writing is crisp, the characters vivid and interesting, and the plot is mostly OK. After finishing, I felt that the ending was a bit contrived, but that's just me. I recommend giving it a try.

[Kyle Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one. It's definitely my favorite of 2015 so far.

[M.H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book until the end. The end was flat.

[Matt Fieldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great premise, not well executed.

[Olivia Gettner · Rating 5 out of 5]

an extremely enjoyable read that proves the world is smaller than we could ever imagine.

three men with the same name. a former professional skier, a rock singer, and an investment banker who shorted his own company and profited millions of dollars at the expense of the public.

and they all meet each other at different points at different stages of their lives, each with a sense of longing for the lives of the other. and so each is so different but the same: they are all called peter harrington and they are all unhappy with themselves.

the story in between is intense. among some soul searching, there is an assassination in shanghai and one pete beats the other peter on the internet because the banker lost the rockers money.

but the center of the novel remains a concept of ‘the other life.’ because each harrington remains unfulfilled in their own lives they yearn for and chase what they wish they could have which is coincidently the lives of the other harringtons.

it’s a wild story from different points of view that delves into the worlds of skiing, finance, fame and publicity, even nazi germany, espionage, murder, and lies.

an unexpected yet excellent read. well-written. each character is his own despite being the same.

my takeaways : peter harrington realized that money couldn’t make him happy. he wanted the quiet life with the family, the harry harrington life. harry harrington realized he had the talent to be incredible. he desired a life of fame like pete harrington, but his accident left him hollow. and as he aged, he accepted his family, construction job, and fate. pete harrington transformed his dead career by assaulting peter in the middle of shanghai. a completely other story of its own that could’ve been it’s own book. but it wasn’t. these characters were searching for more beyond what they had. some were more mature about it than others (pete) but in the end, i think each understood that chasing brings misery. to want one life, and the person with that life wants yours. the plague of unattainable satisfaction.

[Richard A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably worth 2.5 stars. Reasonably entertaining, but no reason other than entertainment to read it.

[MC McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t expect that at all - well done!

[David Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magic Tricks

From the very beginning you know you are entering a rare world – one told by an expert storyteller. One of the beauties of reading a masterfully written piece of fiction is that it exists on so many different levels. Some of these possible realities don’t become apparent until the book is completed, after you’ve stepped away from it and had a chance to ponder what’s happened. These epiphanies sometimes arise in the midst of forming an opinion about a character or a plot point and in that instant, you realize you’ve gotten it all wrong and that the book is about something else entirely.
That miss came through loud and clear when I was talking with Mr. Cohen about his book. An upbeat, candidly refreshing fellow, he quickly and gently let me know that my hypothesis of what his book was about was all wrong. “You mean,” I said, “your book is not an existential exploration of self?” “No,” he replied, “although that is an interesting supposition.”
So, if Cohen’s book is not a riff on existential angst, then beyond a cryptic quote from Lao Tzu in the book’s opening epigram, what’s the deal with This is How it Really Sounds? Well, Cohen shared, he loves skiing and snowboarding, is intrigued by fading rock stars, and has traveled extensively throughout the world, including Asia. He decided it would be a lot of fun to mix all these into a giant soufflé. However, he wanted to wrap this tale for the reader with something meatier. What then evolves is a whimsical dissertation on man’s obsession to control his destiny. Cohen says “We see this with men who want to name stuff. Get their name on a building. Control something by naming it.” And that desire runs smack into the reality as Cohen puts it that “We can’t really control anything.”
He pulls this off in an almost magical way. In fact, Cohen confides his “book is a series of magic tricks.” On the surface this translates into a fun, tongue-in-cheek adventure following the lives of three men, all whose last name is Harrington. The story opens with Harry Harrington skiing down the side of a mountain, doing summersaults hundreds of feet above a mountain’s crag. We’re then introduced to Pete Harrington, catching a glimpse of him before he metastasizes into an aging, floundering rock star, searching for his next mega-hit that will keep his lavish lifestyle and even healthier ego alive and well. Finally, we meet the other Pete Harrington, a jaded Wall Street trader, who has just become obscenely wealthy after “legally” ripping off his many clients for millions of dollars.
Their lives become inextricably wound together in an intricate web of deceit, revenge and redemption. Each of these men enters one another’s lives in ways that are entirely unpredictable and yet when they do intersect it all makes such perfect sense. Perhaps it’s the quixotic, restorative qualities of redemption that inevitably links these disparate characters together as they attempt in their own idiosyncratic ways to rekindle more joyful moments, find the juju that made them feel alive.
This consuming passion to redeem oneself ultimately resides in your perception of who you were compared to who you are today. It is a pursuit to return to an ideal of who you believed you used to be. But, what if your perception of who you are is completely off? Cohen poses this quandary in some non-linear ways. No plot spoilers here, but some, if not several of his characters question their own perception of who they were, who they are, and who they may become.
Let’s face it, how many of us will become rock stars or world-famous Xtreme skiers who soar to stardom, then crash and burn. Bernie Madoff infamy - who wants that? The reality of living these types of lives is a remote possibility for almost all of us. Yet, that’s the irresistible tug of Cohen’s ploy – just what if, what if you or I could slide into any one of those lives and for an instant, vicariously experience their existence. The cinematic twist of Cohen’s story is that each of the protagonists wants to accomplish that within their own lives – they want back into what they’ve lost. Or, more to Cohen’s point, what they believe they’ve lost.
Can that happen? Can we find our way back to a real or perceived reality? The answer is a definite maybe, especially in a novel that triumphs the possibilities of if.

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

well written and very readable but the plot seems to end half way through the book.

[Win Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as giveaway from Goodreads and St. Martin's and, to be honest, expected little. I was pleasantly surprised. This was my first experience with Cohen's work and I found his style easy and engaging. While the construct of disparate people whose lives intersect isn't new I thought Cohen took the idea and put his own spin on it, especially in the final chapters.

I found myself drawn into the lives of each of the Harringtons despite the fact that I had nothing in common with them. Each man was well defined, his motives and inner life elegantly put on the page. Two Harringtons, the aged rock star and the immoral financial maven, would be easy to turn into caricatures. But Cohen developed each so well that I found myself empathizing with them. Cohen keeps you invested in the lives of his characters.

I thought Cohen tried to tell the story from a couple too many perspectives and the Harry Harrington line, the skier, probably could have been worked into the narrative a little more throughly or left out completely, which is a shame because I really liked him. The central story line, the conflict between the banker and the rocker, takes precedence and probably could have stood on its on without the third Harrington. I did like the ending and how Cohen tied everything together.

For me, the strand that tied everything together was the characters' realization that what they had achieved in life was not what they really wanted, particularly the banker and rock star. Both men spent their lives dedicated to a type of success that ultimately left them unfulfilled and wanting something else, a simpler life. I liked where Cohen took his characters and where their journey ended. I'll definitely check out more of his work.

[Darin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of noir, adventure, diatribe and pastoral, Stuart Archer Cohen's This Is How It Really Sounds zigs and zags across the globe in telling its tale of similarly named characters and how they strive to find what they're seeking but, upon attaining it, realize that maybe that's not what they were looking for in the first place.

Pete Harrington, an aging rock star who hasn't had a hit in years, has lost most of his fortune after it was invested in a fund managed by Peter Harrington. Peter Harrington realized his fund was going to implode, cashed out for hundreds of millions of dollars and high-tailed it to Shanghai while the remaining investors lost everything. Harry Harrington was the world's best extreme skier and came close to reaching rock star status in that world but lost it all in a devastating crash shortly after meeting Pete. Pete wants to take his revenge on Peter. Harry wants his son to succeed. Peter wants to be able to live with some dignity, though he is one of the most despised men in the world.

The ways in which the characters circle around each other, weaving in and out of their respective orbits, can be dizzying at times, but Cohen pulls it off with an adrenaline inducing narrative that will often have you on the edge of your seat. Comic touches lighten the events a bit to gracefully take the edge off what otherwise could have become as much of a diatribe as his previous novel, The Army of the Republic. The anti-capitalist sentiment is still present, but toned down to almost respectable levels. The mix of genre and awareness, adventure, intrigue and maturation grabs the reader. Go along for the ride.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is How it Really Sounds by Stuart Archer Cohen

Follow three men who share the same name as their lives intersect through China, California and Alaska. Peter Harrington is a Wall Street banker who made millions off of other’s misfortunes while looking for “The Other Life”, while Pete Harrington is a washed up rock star looking for revenge and a comeback and finally Harry Harrington is a simple man who was once the greatest extreme skier in the world.

I was first interested in this book because of the washed up rock star since I love books dealing with music, but the other characters and the story was very original and I couldn't put it down. But, pay attention because with three characters sharing similar names and the story going from three places and different time frames, you may get a little lost at times. But it is worth it.

[BookBrowse · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cohen also expertly uses recurring motifs — a warm, welcoming home and even a magazine advertisement — to unite his stories and transport readers seamlessly from one character to the other. By setting such everyday motifs in different lives and different situations, (the magazine ad, for example, shows up both in Shanghai and Alaska), the reader is left to connect the dots — to imagine not just the novel’s three central characters but to adopt a wide-angle perspective and marvel at the many seemingly banal facets that make up each special life. The way that Cohen so fluidly places this responsibility on the reader’s shoulder is his biggest strength and the novel’s most soulful note." - Poornima Apte, BookBrowse.com. Full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/in...

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

In disclosure this was a first reads book. "This is How it Really Sounds" explores the lives of three men with the same name, and their possible lives. Call it midlife, but lately I have found myself asking if I'm really living the life I should be, or should I have made other choices. What life would I be living if I had chosen differently. "This is how it Really Sounds" it about that moment something clicks with how things are and the realization of what the other life would be if we made changes. The three men are on different paths but their lives and dreams overlap in a way to help us explore what is and what could be. Sometimes the simpler life is happiness.

[Nicole Aronis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book for an assignment for my internship. If it hadn't been an assignment, I don't think I would have read it all the way through. The prose jumps around from character to character, which is usually great, but none of their plots ever really finish. The exposition is pretty good--but always incomplete. Even the ending doesn't end right, just trails off, leaving you thinking there's more, but there's not, and it's confusing to boot at the end. I'm not sure what Cohen was trying to accomplish, but he didn't pull it off. If you like a confusing almost-noir read, I guess this is for you.

[Jane Somerville · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't even bother finishing this. I read about 120 pages before I gave up. The major theme is the problems and discontent that come with fame and fortune. All of the characters and rich and famous, but unhappy. This sounds like it could be interesting, but it really came off as whiney. The writing is sympathetic to incredibly boring and unsympathetic characters, and I did not feel the same way. The author wrote very dislike able characters, yet still tried to make the reader like them, and failed.
That being said, it was well written. I might be willing to give this author another chance, if he can come up with a better concept.

[James Rinker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely not a book I'd read again. The concept was really cool at first through having the three different characters lives intersect, but about halfway through the book I grew to find it quite dry and overall just really boring. If you're interested in reading it, go right ahead! I think that if you'r eone to really have the time to sit down and delve into a book like this, it's definitely the book for you. On the other hand, if you're like me and literally have only 10 minutes of your day to sit down and delve into a book, I wouldn't really recommend it.