AUDIOBOOK read by Jim Dale

This relatively short fairy tale is told in the first person by a young boy who was born on the coldest day of the year.  Due to the cold, his heart was too weak to keep him alive and the tinkering midwife who delivered him attached a cuckoo clock to his heart to keep it beating.  The story progresses as the boy grows up, falls in love, gets hurt, goes after the girl, falls deeper in love, gets hurt, etc.  Through all of this, we hear about the impact that it has on his clock and how he uses his clock as a crutch instead of relying on his real heart.  

I’m torn about whether or not I enjoyed this book.  I suppose if I’m torn, then that means I ultimately didn’t buy into the whole story.  While parts of the book are good, I found myself often wanting the narrative to speed up to get it over with.  If I had read the actual book instead of listening to the audiobook, I expect that I would have been doing quite a bit of skimming.  The audiobook was well read as Dale has a killer Scottish accent that is enjoyable to listen to, but I don’t think I’d recommend this one.