Clara’s Verdict
Adele Parks has been producing reliably engaging commercial fiction for over two decades, and Tell Me Something – one of her earlier novels, now available in audio from HQ – represents her at her most ambitious within the genre’s conventions. The Italian setting gives the book an unusual vividness; Parks uses Rome and the surrounding landscapes not merely as backdrop but as a kind of pressure cooker in which the tensions in Elizabeth’s marriage and self-image are forced to a head. Narrated by Silvia Presente over twelve hours and forty minutes, this is a book that divides opinion sharply, and that division is, I would argue, a mark of its honesty.
About the audiobook
Elizabeth has one clear ambition: find a sexy Italian husband, move to Italy, and have a baby. She achieves the first two – Roberto is real, the move happens – and then discovers that the fantasy was more coherent than the reality. Her mother-in-law dislikes her immediately. Roberto’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend lingers. And the pregnancy they both want does not come.
Parks is doing something deliberate with Elizabeth’s character: she is written as a woman defined almost entirely by romantic fantasies about Italy and Italians – the “shallow, lazy, hopeless romantic” that one honest reviewer describes. The narrative proceeds to interrogate that fantasy with considerable rigour, and Elizabeth’s self-absorption becomes the novel’s central problem as well as its central subject. Whether you find this a compelling character study or an infuriating protagonist depends almost entirely on your tolerance for being made to sit with your own projections.
The themes are genuine and the writing sharp in the more serious passages – particularly around fertility, the weight of marital expectation, and the loneliness of being a foreigner in your own domestic life. Parks earns her rom-com label but consistently strains against its limits.
The narration
Silvia Presente narrates, and her bilingual facility with English and Italian adds authenticity to the Italian setting. Her reading of Elizabeth is clear-eyed without being unsympathetic – she conveys the character’s self-deception without undermining the passages where Parks allows genuine feeling to surface. At twelve hours and forty minutes, this is a leisurely pace for the genre, which suits a novel that is as much about atmosphere and character as plot mechanics.
What readers say
The reviews are as divided as the character. One listener wrote that reading it on holiday made them “feel as though I have been to Italy” and that they were instantly a Parks convert. Another called it “the finest Parks novel,” praising the change of scenery and the unusual quality of making you root for the characters despite their flaws. A third was more direct: “One of the most irritating pathetic main characters I have ever read about” – and went on to give a thoughtful critique of Elizabeth’s particular brand of self-absorption. This is the review, incidentally, that I find most useful: it describes the book accurately, just reaches a different conclusion about whether that is interesting. The audiobook holds a rating of 4.1 on Audible UK.
Who should listen?
This is a book for Adele Parks readers who are prepared for something slightly less comfortable than her more recent work, and for listeners who enjoy the Italian literary tradition of exposing the gap between romantic fantasy and domestic reality. It works particularly well as a holiday listen – the descriptions of Italy are genuinely evocative, and Parks has clearly spent time there. Those who want a straightforward, feel-good romantic comedy should look elsewhere; those who like their commercial fiction with a self-aware edge will find it rewarding.
Listen to Tell Me Something on Audible UK – Adele Parks at her most adventurous.
