potsherds

Great F narrator and good M narrator can't save it

Revisado: 10-05-24

Narrators good/great (Ferraiolo not really the best fit, imo).

Story is trite and chauvinistic, The MMC is cut out of broody, angsty cardboard -- very two-dimensional. Adding some pitiful backstory to give the MMC trauma doesn't excuse his inability to see women as human beings. The persistent dehumanization of women the MMC engages in is aggravating and pointless to the larger story, other than the laziest way to emphasize how awesome the MFC is, since he's capable of comprehending her humanity (debatable).
Truly, a very shallow story.

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This'll be a good series if the 'gray' MMC dies!

Revisado: 09-11-24

So, my ratings might look odd, but the author's writing talent seems pretty good to me, and the narrators were superb.
The world-building is...well, original enough to be intriguing and entertaining, blah-di-blah, etc.

Eh, but...I don't have any confidence this author can pull the MMC out of the deep moral abyss that 24 hours of audio time had him sliding into. The character is irredeemable, in my eyes. Understanding the tragedy of a monster's creation at the hands of another monster doesn't ameliorate said monster's behavior. Repeatedly repeated behavior, without much apparent ability to stretch beyond a limited set of noxious learned patterns and responses. Especially when the character is already hardly likable, given his position in society and his lack of recognition or gratitude for the width, breadth, and extent of privileges and luxuries that have been afforded to him by rote and expectation due to his status. For the MMC to spend 24 hours of audio time repeatedly treating the MFC with threats of physical abuse, plenty of psychological abuse, misdirection, secrets, and lies--understanding the MMC's justifications are...worthless. As is he. He needs to die. I hope he does. I don't intend to continue the series unless and until I hear the guy eats it in the end, preferably at the hands of the MFC. Otherwise, I think this series is glorifying some truly toxic stuff.

Taking this series at face value, this isn't at all a dark fantasy romance, as there's no concern for a morality based on goodness and decency in the story at all. The singular doctrine that appears to have value is the will to power. That isn't dark, that's pure *black*. The world, while interesting and different, is twisted and corrupt. The ruling people have power due to their subjugation, physical assault, and abuse of others, not due to any earned status or generally acknowledged right to their dominion. Within this world, which I don't think the author is aware she's built so coal-black and damned, I expect the FMC will remain in a toxic, abusive relationship with the MMC who initially took her as his slave, and even after learning she's likely the most powerful person on the planet *still* intends to keep her in bondage.

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Where is the editor?? At least 15 hrs could be cut

Revisado: 03-13-23

The narrator is great.
The writing appears to be technically good. But goodness, it needed some honest editors. This book is twice as long as it needs to be.

The book's premise is really promising and it starts out fine, but then just gets...lost in the woods on a horse. The mc is a melodramatic woman who can't make up her mind, and despite supposedly being a relatively mature woman and mother, has the internal monologue of an indecisive 20-something, yet never arrives at the conclusion that her entire romatic-emotional level was stunted back at "THE EVENT", which it clearly was. The book falls into soap opera territory, where NOTHING happens in the vast middle portion of the book except a LOT of internal monologing that is mostly rather silly and extremely repetitive.
All for an MC that is VERY not worth it. The jerk lied by omission to the mc early on about something extremely, extremely important thus proving himself to be manipulative trash, imo.
Now, the other plot of this book about the mc's daughter and global politics was really interesting and was the primary focus of the beginning of the book. I was very interested in some resolution to that but my disappointment outpaced my patience before I could locate anything interesting in the last few chapters relating to the daughter and the growing unrest between neighboring nations, or whatever.
It's stunning how much of this book is comprised of angsty internal monologue and princess'ing by a 30-something mother. Definitely a case where a promising book with good foundations was let down by editing, or a lack thereof.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Narration is ok, but the story is not great

Revisado: 02-22-23

Not even superb narration could fix this one, imo.
West is good, Estrella is fine. If y'all really want to slog through this one or actually *like* MC's that are pushovers with no motivation, then I suggest speeding up the narration, at least.

This book's plot didn't go anywhere by chapter 9 when I DNF'ed. [Literally! The mc's had met, feelings ensued thus creating a conundrum for CHAPTERS.] It was by that point merely a junior-high level soap opera about some piteous girl-child stuck in a religious cult. This poor mooncalf's internal monologue was constant self-recrimination and self-pity and was extremely repetitious. Also, she somehow, despite living outside of her family and away from her weirdo cult members, had never figured out that their ideas and social strictures were strange and harmful.
It's a fairly skeevy book, really! The thoughts and motivations of the fmc better reflect a naive teenage girl and the mmc's thoughts and behaviors better represent a guy only slightly older than that, who is a deadbeat and a loser. Do not see the appeal of the characters or the book.

I think the writing is technically good though, e.g. the prose is just peachy as far as I can tell.

Ima go listen to some RH about demons or something. Something a little more grounded than this.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Nah. This book doesn't know what it wants to be.

Revisado: 10-26-22

This book sets up a barely plausible and extremely cringey plot to throw these "dominant [alpha] men" (please strike this stupid phrase from the lexicon, it's gross and tainted beyond redemption) in the path of the mc. It then does a fair job of moving that plot along and making it seem the author cares about keeping this book about more than sex for the first (ha!) 10-ish hours of the audible. It then just falls to pot. Well smut. Which is fine! But I would have preferred for that to have been rather clear at some point earlier in the book? So I could have DNF'ed earlier and wasted less time. I dunno how one makes this a series?! It's just sex now, the mc has completely switched her personality, and it's beyond believability for me so I can't get myself to care despite the time I spent.

If you don't mind a book changing its genre nearly 80% through, go for it. I really hate it when books pull out the rug like this.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Started fine and then went pretty much nowhere

Revisado: 07-03-22

Narrators were fine.
This book seemed promisingly witty at the start and it just floated into meandering nowhere and drifted along and seemed to grasp at things to make it interesting with melodramatic desperation.
The premise creates some consent issues that are not really addressed, in my opinion. There's conventional wedding discourse related to fat-phobia nonsense that was just silly and irritating. The book became un-funny fast.

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Ignore negative reviews whinging of "left bias"

Revisado: 05-14-22

The reviews complaining about "liberal bias" and whinging over Walter not including the much fewer numbers of leftist terror events in the past few decades when compared to the hundreds and hundreds of right-wing extremist events is such a silly example of some of the very stuff Walter is trying to discuss.
Merely discussing the worrying trends in radicalization among white evangelical Christians who are feeling themselves lose their grip on cultural, economic, and political power causes such moaning displays of grievance and outsized attacks against truth-tellers.
Walter is discussing here in this book two specific markers found in countries that are at high risk for falling into a modern-day civil war (which looks different from previous centuries' civil wars, and certainly looks *very* different when your country's military is large and sophisticated). She's not discussing her own personal research, but collective research done on a large dataset. It's findings are not negotiable just because it makes you feel sad or bad. She gives many, many examples across the globe to back it up, then moves to the U.S. to explain why here these two markers exist now and WE.ARE.IN.TROUBLE.

Anocracy and the increasing homogenization and radicalization of the GOP into a white, radical Christian, nationalist party, are the two risk factors (the ONLY two risk factors) that create the stage for civil war. Here or anywhere else where a country moves from democracy or autocracy into a mixed chaotic system of anocracy, and where groups divide not by ideology, but by racial, ethnic, and/or religious identity, the stage is set for civil war.
This is the thesis of the book, and the years of research Walter was involved in. Ignore the negative reviews by the very folks that are putting the stability and peace of the United States at risk.

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esto le resultó útil a 13 personas

Waiting for the rest of the series!

Revisado: 03-12-22

I don't have much of merit or substance to say about the book.
The book was fairly dark, fair warning, but it also managed to feel slightly fluffy to me.
I enjoyed it.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Stopped listening @ Ch14 bc of coercive "romance"

Revisado: 01-20-22

Yeah, so the older woman in this dual-couple book just got out of a horrendous marriage and grew up under the thumb of a pretty strict father, as well. So at the start of the book, she's basically as "free" as can be possible for the time, for the first time in her life. And when she comes across her romantic interest he moves in on her in record time, has no respect or patience for her skittishness, and her outright refusal to marry, gives not one single, solitary, you-know-what for her multiple, detailed, extremely good reasons for why she doesn't want to marry (OR AT LEAST COULD YOU SLOW DOWN AND GIVE HER SOME TIME, YOU UTTER CREEP), and just starts kissing her.
This entire set-up can be handled well and I've read it so many, many times. This is NOT one of those times. This was the story of a very unlucky woman going from a verbally, and occasionally physically, abusive husband to a man who is manipulative and coercive, all the red flags for worsening abuse down the road.

The narrator was fine.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, Mary Sue

Revisado: 11-14-21

I believe this story's main character fits the definition of a "Mary Sue". This writer's constant use of rape and sexual assault to drive the plot forward or to show who the "bad guys" are is gross, chauvinistic, and lazy. The entire plot revolves around rape and sexual assault, honestly; it needed a huge content warning in the summary/blurb. Moreover, the WAY in which rape and sexual assault were treated was not as well-done as it could have been, considering how often it's mentioned or used to drive the story forward.
There was a lot of pointless filler (e.g. learning how to cook?!). The dialogue was pretty bad.

I'm a little amazed that this book is getting such great reviews. It's not a good book and the longer I listened the worse I felt for the narrator having to read it.
I guess the narrator did a really, really good job with the material for so many folks to be bamboozled by bad, rapey writing.

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