I did get quite a long way with the story, but I mostly listen to audiobooks when I'm cooking the evening meal. If I'd been reading the book, I could probably have skimmed a little when the deliberate cruelty was happening, but of course you can't do that with an audiobook. It's quite a subtle thing, it's not necessarily what happens, it's how it's depicted and I felt there was a little too much dwelling on the cruelty. I also couldn't see that the story was going anywhere interesting and I lost patience with it. I'm now listening to an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, The Doors of Eden which is faster paced and I'm enjoying it much more.