hambrick91

Narrator lost me

Revisado: 12-03-23

I listened to the first hour bit couldn't get past the narrator's choppy, wooden reading. Gave up.

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OK, but won't read another

Revisado: 05-06-23

The story was interesting, but I found my attention wandering in all the details and large cast of characters. I was interested enough to finish, but not to want to read the next book.

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One of Koontz's best!!

Revisado: 04-15-23

I first encountered this book years ago as one of the first books I'd read by Koontz. It's interweaving of timeliness, contrasting themes of good vs. evil, faith vs. no faith, and hope vs. bleakness, is coupled with an exploration of quantum physics and a subtle hint of the supernatural. I've since read the majority of Dean Koontz's body of work, and this remains one of my top 5 favorites of his.

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esto le resultó útil a 16 personas

Confusing and overwhelming

Revisado: 08-13-21

I gave up on this after about 3 hours. The timeline is all over the place. In some parts the story implies that the guy's wife and kid died a year ago, but that doesn't make sense since he didn't acquire his paranormal talents until after the accident and again, it is implied he worked in the paranormal field for quite a while before taking a break. Later it's stated point blank that they died some 15 years ago, which fits into the timeline better. But that's 3+ hours into the story. By then we've jumped back and forth all over, from the accident that killed his family, to present day, to the early days of his recovery and discovering his paranormal gifts, back to present day, briefly into an affair, back to present day....by then I've completely lost the will to try and keep up with how the timeline fits together, much less give a flying fig newton about the character and his storyline.

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Gripping Story

Revisado: 06-11-21

I stayed up all night to finish this book, as I couldn't find a good stopping point. I just *had* to know what happened next!

The narrator mostly did ok, but he mangled almost all the medical terminology, which made me a little crazy. But he brought great emotion and interpretation to the text which made it all the more engaging.

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Excellent story one narrator is terrible

Revisado: 10-09-20

The story is great, lots of tension and "how will they get out of this" moments. It is well-paced and well-written on the whole. The male narrator does a great job with his portion of the story.

My issue is the female narrator who is reading the female point of view. I get that she is narrating an 11-year-old girl for most of her parts, but she is just...sloppy in her reading. Sometimes she enunciates, but often she slurs words together in such a way as make them difficult to understand. She also employs a slightly whiny/annoying pitch and tone to her voice that is just off-putting and doesn't seem to fit the personality of the tough young girl she is meant to portray.

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Intriguing beginning, then predictable storyline

Revisado: 07-23-20

This book began great, with an interesting premise and setup for the crime. For about the first 1/3, maybe half, I was interested in where it was going. In fact I listened to it most of the day. Then it devolved into ham-handed dialogue and story development. I was still intrigued, hoping it was just a lull in the action, but ultimately I found the last 1/4 or so of the book to be on the predictable side. When the villain was finally revealed, I'll admit I was a bit surprised, but it was such a last-minute thing that it felt like the author was as ready to be done with the book as I was of listening to it.

Also. be warned: if you're like me and don't like graphically played out sex scenes, you will want to fast forward through several sections of this book. It's not every time they see each other, but when it happens, it goes on. And on. And on. And on. One of them, I hit the 30 second fast forward button 8 times before they were done and back to the plot.

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Interesting at the end

Revisado: 11-02-19

At first, the story was slow and focused much more on who the main character was than developing the ghost story itself, while at the same time not managing to give enough back story to make her intriguing. The character is likeable enough. Her tie to the house and family is revealed toward the end and felt kind of formula-driven, though it was done well enough and had a few interesting plot twists.

Maybe I missed an important clue, but I spent a good portion of the story trying to figure out the setting. The narrator read in an American accent, the character paid for things in dollars, and at one point laments how hard it was to move across a "state" with no idea what she was headed towards and very little money. Then the character would turn around and use distinctly British words and phrases, give distances in kilometers, reference the family's history as a form of aristocracy not that far removed from the time of lords and ladies and other cues that made it sound like it was set in Britain. For a while, I thought maybe she was American and inherited a house in Britain, but then the narrator didn't give her new friends or the townspeople British accents. I thought perhaps this is set in Canada, but that doesn't seem quite right, either.

I got this in a "two books for one credit" deal, and for that, am not especially sorry I got it. Had I used my one and only credit for the month on it, though, I might have found myself disappointed.

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Wonderful Young Adult Adventure Story!

Revisado: 09-28-19

Good, clean fun is found as adventure (and misadventure!) befalls two young teens and their dogs. The boys make some bad choices that get them into trouble, but also learn teamwork and problem-solving skills that help them escape. All-in-all, a great story!

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Story is great, as always, but narration "off"

Revisado: 12-08-18

As always, Louise Penny has written an engaging story, this time largely centering on Gamache and his son in law. Robert Bathurst has done a great job taking over the narration of the past several books, however the one was just not as good as the previous ones. His ability to slip in and out of the characters is substandard. His overall reading is adequate, but not the stellar performance I've come to expect from him.

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