Devotion audiobook

Devotion is this summer's Social Creature, a propulsive 'poor girl meets rich girl' story set in Manhattan, chronicling the mutually destructive relationship between two young women, Elle and Lonnie. Elle is hired as a nanny for Lonnie's infant son, and soon her resentment toward her employer turns into an unhealthy obsession.Despite the inevitable Social Creature comparison, Devotion isn't quite as suspenseful or climactic, and its protagonists left less of an impression on me. Even so, I had a hard time putting this down; for a slow-moving story it never really loses momentum, and it has that 'need to know what happens next' quality that mercifully doesn't feel like a cop-out when nothing ever really happens. Madeline Stevens achieves this with pitch-perfect characterization of the novel's narrator, Elle, whose 'do I want to be her or do I want to sleep with her' dynamic with Lonnie is the morbidly compelling thread that holds this plotness novel together and keeps you turning pages. Ultimately: a quick, addictive read that doesn't offer much in the way of thrills or chills, but still has an eerie and unsettling quality that makes it impossible to look away, and which offers a deceptively nuanced commentary on living on the periphery of extreme wealth.Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

I devoured Devotion in short order- a beautifully descriptive prose sinks you into the life of Ella and her ever growing devotion to Lonnie her employer, both women are gorgeously drawn, ethereal and quirky in their own separate ways, when brought together things end up somewhat explosive.The whole story has a strange, unearthly feel to it, you almost feel like these women haunt you as you read- the central theme deals with this odd attraction where two personalities almost become one. The supporting cast levitate around them, cause and effect giving rise to an ever growing sense that something will go wrong. It is a story of love bordering on hate, of obsession and consequence, of having versus not having and all the things we want that are beyond our reach.I found it both clever and compelling, terrific literary writing and an utterly gripping tale.Recommended.

Impossible to put down. Going into this novel expecting a twisty thriller is a mistake; it states its premise (Ella becomes obsessed with Lonnie) and then cranks that up to the extreme.I listened to the audio book and really enjoyed Sarah Naughton's performance.

This book was creepy.... and I love it! Ella is hired to to work for Lonny. She is the nanny who becomes obsessed with Lonny and her family and lifestyle. After all they are the same age, so where did Ella's life go wrong??? Yes. This is a creepy tale of obsession that will keep you reading long into the night .... it will make you think before hiring a nanny too ... lolThanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me this copy.

Delicious with sensory details ("The house smelled of lavender and something earthy, like modeling clay."), psychological momentum, and tense character development, this book focuses on an Upper East Side nanny whose resentment toward her privileged employer morphs into an obsession. "Don't leave me with these people," I murmured when she returned. "I'm not like them." Who wouldn't want to know the boundaries of that dialogue in scene? This book is a gorgeous character study with bubbling, taut tension; it's nuanced yet urgent, thrillingly mysterious yet relatable.

Thank You NetGalley and Ecco Books for the digital galley of Devotion.Ella takes on a nanny position to care for Lonnie and James' son, William. Ella becomes completely, dangerously, morbidly, obsessed with Lonnie. This book. Sometimes you love a book so much, that you really don't have the words for it.For me, that is this book.It's beautifully written.It moved me.I have nothing negative to say. It's everything.

Devotion is a book that will get you within the first few pages. Madeline Stevens writing is sharp and smartly put, she wonderfully handle a solid story and by the end of the book I just wanted to lurk a little longer within these compelling characters. A must read and a great debut novel.

This book was a fever dream. It was captivating and so so mystifying. It captivated mental illness in such a natural way. You knew that the behaviors of these people weren’t ok or normal in the parts they were playing but you couldn’t help but wonder what got them to that point and understanding their actions based on that. I loved reading about these female characters and their complex depth. The way Lonnie was so obviously depressed in her life and felt her only purpose was to engross and captivate other people to love her so she wouldn’t feel so alone. Absolutely heartbreaking. And so so real. The way everyone around her eventually disappointed her. The way she couldn’t finish anything she started. Elle’s adoration and obsession for her absolutely bewildered me. She hated to love her. At first I was no nervous for Lonnie because Elle’s obsession for her came from a place of jealousy and resentment. Then as they spent more time together you could see her adoration transforming into love and understanding. It was still very toxic and unhealthy and just fed into Lonnie’s self sabotage. Reading the other reviews I think most people failed to capture the fact that all of the character’s obsessions with Lonnie caused them to abuse her boundaries and harm her in the same way it had been done to her as a child. It made perfect sense that lonnie had to escape it all. I think the ending was very fitting for a situation like that and I hope lonnie was able to find a new environment where things wouldn’t come so easy and she could heal. Elle, I feel, also acted out of her own trauma and i feel like she saw a lot of herself and her own experiences in that of Lonnie’s and that’s why she felt so captivated in being her. I think, in her head, lonnie lived the same life but just a rich version. She was resentful that lonnie got to live that version and she was jealous that because of that she had everything Elle wanted. I think at the end she realized she didn’t want it after all. After understanding that it wasn’t the satisfying happy life she thought it was. After seeing what it had caused her and everyone around her to do to Lonnie. Psychoanalyzing these characters was so fun for me and it really opened the world of emotions for me. People are so much more complex then the simple life styles and terms we put into all of human emotion and action. I feel like understanding that is the only way to properly help humans through their journeys.

Completely absorbing, exceedingly well-written.Bizarre.Stevens shows exemplary understanding of the vacillating complexities of the disturbed human psyche; her protagonist, Ella is lethargic, greedy, unambitious, disingenuous... And yet, she is curious, naïve, dedicated, obsessed. She meticulously catalogs her employer’s habits, her movements, her mannerisms. More than simply observing, she is a hunter stalking her pray. It isn’t the kill that she’s after, however. At least, not initially. Not actually. It’s freedom that she desires, the same way the hunter envies the swiftness of the deer, its deft, refined motion as it commands the dark woods. Ella’s personal life could not contrast more starkly with the lives of her employers, or so it appears by the looks of their living quarters. Lonnie and James. These people have money, luxury, opportunity. Ella hasn’t eaten for two weeks. As she spends more time in their home, as she cares for their son and collects more artifacts of their past, the lines of her reality blur. She has access to their wealth, but does not possess it. She loves and cares for their child; mothers him, but she is not his mother. She absorbs the details of Lonnie’s days, diaries, photos... but she is not Lonnie. She inhabits a world of which she will never truly be a part.But she is no different than rest of them.We are all the same.A little reminiscent of Nick’s role in The Great Gatsby, Ella serves as a window into another life — fine foods, fancy parties, physical luxury. Things that humans pursue with hope of filling the void, the pit of longing that resides in every single mind and heart and life, no matter how fulfilling it may be. She is a cautionary tale, if you will, of how we lose ourselves, despite knowing better. The slippery slope of consequence, once action is taken, and the haunting that remains long after it is over. It’s never over.

Ella has arrived in New York from Orgeon like so many young girls, full of big dreams and barely scraping by. When she takes a job as a nanny for an upper east side couple, she is immediately transported into a world of privilege in an elegant brownstone as she tends to the couples one young son. Lonnie, the wife, is beautiful, a talented writer and has been born into family money and Ella is immediately attracted to everything about her, rocketing between envy and coveting her life, which begins to grow to an infatuation. Ella is pulled deeper and deeper into Lonnie’s world and her girlish affections, but beware the bright flame, its easy to get burned.

Gorgeous book, full of love, fear, and envy. It left me breathless.

This book had a thriller vibe to it but is more like a dark literary commentary about class, family, and the way lust's boundaries can be broken. Stevens writes with sharp descriptions, cutting emotion, and touches of dark humor. The last chunk of the book is especially charged and exciting.Choice quote: "Beauty is pain because it is not eternal."

Ella is broke and down on her luck when she lands a job as a nanny for a wealthy couple. Since Ella and Lonnie are the same age, Ella begins to obsess over the differences in their lifestyles. This book is full of twists and turns and shows just how far jealousy can drive a woman!

I love books about obsession, the boundaries of friendship and the idea that one person can insert themselves into another’s life in such an insidious manner. We follow main character Ella as she becomes a nanny to a young boy with wealthy, privileged parents. Ella becomes completely obsessed with the boy’s mother, Lonnie, in a way that seems to lie somewhere between adoration and jealousy. Things get more and more complicated as time goes on and frankly more and more odd as these characters are forced to face the truth of their relationships.Devotion is quite a strange little book in the sense that most of the characters are difficult to root for in any way. Ella (or Elle as she begins to call herself) is, the reader understands pretty quickly, a distinctly damaged and unstable person. She comes across as desperate for drama and attention . She is a complete fantasist, and seems to want to live through Lonnie whose fleeting moods and actions she gives far too much weight and meaning to. Ella’s compulsion to ingratiate herself into Lonnie’s entire persona seems frequently quite indecent. She goes through Lonnie’s every possession in an invasive and bizarre way. Lonnie herself is portrayed as the typical bohemian type of woman for whom everything comes easy and who is stunningly elegant and poised. I found their odd and insular relationship with each other really compelling and I think it’s one of the best things about Devotion. There’s also a weird kind of lyricism to Steven’s writing which I loved.If you like a book with a clear story arc, Devotion might not be for you. It is quite meandering and is a character study of sorts. I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because of the gorgeous prose, but I could maybe have done with slightly more resolution. Despite that, I do think this is the perfect read for a lazy summer afternoon about the strange lengths people will go to when they become completely possessed by obsession.

Twenty-six-year-old Ella can’t quite manage adulting. Adrift in New York City, she often looks for men to buy her drinks and meals, sleeping with them as payment. She is as far away from Manhattan luxury as it’s possible to be. When she scores a job as a nanny, however, she finds herself on the other side--swaddled in the lush comfort of Lonnie and James’s brownstone, surrounded by ease and plenty. She likes the baby well enough, but the true focus of her attention is Lonnie herself. Like Ella, Lonnie is twenty-six; unlike Ella, Lonnie has acquired success and status. She’s beautiful, too. Ella’s fixation begins as admiration, morphs quickly into envy, and then veers into obsession. Ella wants what Lonnie has--men, trinkets, accolades. Ella wants Lonnie herself, too, and Lonnie seems game for the intense friendship Ella seeks. But there just may be a limit to what Lonnie is willing to give.From the second page of the prologue we know Lonnie ultimately disappears, and the bulk of the novel details Ella’s involvement with Lonnie and James, and the events that may have contributed to Lonnie’s flight. Ella is an unabashedly unreliable narrator, and the people around her are just as ambiguously truthful. But who, exactly, is most at fault for Lonnie’s unhappiness is beside the point. Devotion adheres to a sliding scale of morality, leading readers deep into territory where there are no real villains or victims--only shameless commitment to delusion, obfuscation, lust, and greed.***Review originally written for the City Book Review. I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.***

I read Devotion during one of our camping trip by Lake Superior and I was immediately engrossed in the story. The focus is on the relationship between two women of similar age but from two different social class status. It explores the obsessive and complicated love between the two women.When Elle becomes the nanny to Lonnie's son William, it soon becomes evident that she has a yearning for something from Lonnie. Does she want to become her? Does she love her? Is it more from devotion or obsession? The whole story has a strange feel to it as the two personalities seem to become one. As the story goes on, the reader gets a feeling that something will go terribly wrong. Devotion is a story of love that is bordering on hate. It weighs having things versus not having them when they maybe just out of reach.This was a clever story that had my full attention from start to finish.Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for my gifted copy.