Play Book Tag discussion

How the Penguins Saved Veronica – Hazel Prior
Digital audiobook performed by Helen Lloyd, Andrew Fallaize, and Mandy Williams.
3.5***

Veronica McCreedy is an eighty-five-year-old woman living alone in her large home in Ayrshire, Scotland. She’s estranged from her family, and has a testy relationship with her housekeeper Eileen. She’s set in her ways and feels entitled to live her life as she pleases. She’s recently discovered that she has a grandson, but when she decides to visit him, she finds him less than desirable; Patrick is mostly unemployed and a frequent marijuana smoker. Veronica is not about to leave her millions to a drug-addled bum! A documentary she sees about scientists’ efforts to save penguins in Antarctica captures her attention. So, she decides to visit the scientists and see their work up close and personal before leaving them her millions.

The plot is outlandish and unrealistic but completely engaging and heart-warming. Veronica reminds me of many other cranky, outspoken elderly main characters (Ove and Olive Kitteridge to name two). She’s not about to lie down and die, though she recognizes that her time is growing short, and she’ll damn well do whatever she pleases in the meantime. She’s opinionated, rigid, and without tact. But she’s also a caring person, whose maternal instincts – in this case – are stirred by a tiny orphan penguin chick she names Patrick (and later, Pip). I just fell in love with her and was cheering her on. I felt outrage on her behalf when learning about how she had been treated in her youth. No wonder she walled off her heart.

The experts in the Antarctic hardly know what to do with her, but they DO need that grant, and they try their best to shelter Veronica from the worst effects of the harsh conditions under which they work and live.

Everyone learns a lesson or two about cooperation and teamwork, and about opening one’s heart to the possibility of love.

The audiobook is performed by a trio of talented voice artists. The bring these characters to life.

The book was originally published in the United Kingdom under the title Away With the Penguins .



LINK to my review