Mad Mabel

 

Mad Mabel 

By Sally Hepworth

I really wanted to love this book because the premise is interesting, but honestly, listening to it has felt like a bit of a chore.

Between the different timelines, all the characters, and the pieces of the mystery that slowly come together, I found myself getting lost and having to work to keep track of what was happening. I would drift off for a few minutes and come back wondering if I'd missed something important. Maybe it's me, but I honestly don't know how people listen to audiobooks while doing other things and manage to take it all in!

The story centers on 81-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick, a rather prickly, fiercely independent woman living a quiet life in a Melbourne neighborhood. But Elsie has a secret: she was once Mabel Waller, a teenage girl who became infamous as “Mad Mabel” after being convicted of murder. When an elderly neighbor, Ishaan, is found dead, her carefully maintained anonymity begins to unravel, and suddenly the police, the media, and the neighborhood are all interested in her past.

As the story unfolds, we move between Elsie’s present-day life and her troubled childhood, learning about the experiences and relationships that helped shape the girl who would become Mad Mabel. There are complicated family dynamics, childhood trauma, questions about guilt and justice, and friendships that become important lifelines. In the present, Elsie also finds herself drawn into the lives of her younger neighbors, including a curious little girl named Persephone and her mother, Roxanne. As more of Elsie’s history comes to light, you start questioning how much of the story people think they know is actually true.

Beneath the mystery is a deeper story about loneliness, trauma, the need to feel loved, and how our past shapes who we become. The more I learned about Mabel, the more I wanted to understand her, even when I wasn't always sure I was following every twist and turn.

But there was one thought in particular that really stuck with me: how funny it is that the things we dream of having or desperately want sometimes don't bring us the joy we imagined they would.

Isn't that the truth?

When we're younger, we tend to believe happiness is waiting for us somewhere in the future.

I'll be happy when I have the lake house. I'll be happy when I get that promotion. I'll be happy when I buy my dream car. I'll be happy when I find the right person. I'll be happy when I finally have the life I've been working toward.

And then you get there. You accomplish the things you worked so hard for. You feel proud, grateful, even excited. But the enormous, lasting sense of fulfillment you imagined doesn't always arrive. Or it arrives for a little while, and then life settles back into its ordinary rhythm.

I think maturity is realizing that something can be wonderful and still not make you happy in the way you expected it to.

That doesn't mean you made the wrong decision. It means you've discovered that the thing you wanted and the feeling you hoped it would give you aren't necessarily the same thing.

Sometimes we spend so much energy getting the life we thought we wanted that we don't stop to ask whether the life we've built actually feels good to live in.

Maybe the next chapter isn't about acquiring another thing or achieving another goal. Maybe it's about figuring out what makes an ordinary Tuesday feel meaningful. What makes us curious? Who makes us laugh? What gives us something to look forward to when we wake up in the morning?

Maybe it's a new adventure, a creative pursuit, a friendship, or something we haven't even discovered yet. We don't have to abandon the lives we've built to want something more from them.

There's a difference between being happy with what you've achieved and being fulfilled by how you're living. I think that distinction can take a lifetime to understand.

As for the book itself, I struggled with the pacing and shifting timelines. I suspect this might be a book that's easier to follow on the page than in audio, at least for me.

Even though the listening experience hasn't been especially enjoyable, the story has given me something to think about, and I suppose that's worth something.

Three stars for the book, but perhaps a little more credit for the thoughts it left me with.