squirrelhippie

Distilled dullness

Revisado: 12-15-18

I legitimately do not understand how this story would appeal to anyone. Every moment of this story teeters on fantastical before stubbornly remaining mundane. There is an aloof flock of cats, one would expect them to do something exceptional or exert some kind of influence, but no, it's just cats. The countess attracts birds and always gossips with them, the birds never talk back, they're just birds. There are hidden spectacles that inspire forgotten rituals and supernatural scenes, they are mentioned once and then promptly forgotten. And this is just the world, almost every character is equally dull. They all are quite two dimensional, scenes never culminate in any growth or surprise, just attitudes bouncing off each other, usually resulting in nothing. It doesn't help that these people suffer from a chronic lack of consciousness. I swear at least half the dialog in this book is characters failing to understand each other or attempting to be understood. A common dialog will go something like this
"the countess has stolen our birds"
"who?"
"the countess"
"what about her?"
"she stole them"
"what?"
"our birds"
what about them?"
ad infinitum. It doesn't help that hardly any characters are likable. They are all described in completely unappealing terms and speech as if the author was personally insulted by the Groan family. The cook is personified as a mobile mass of corpulent dough. The countess' weight is described using every word in the dictionary except fat. The Count is a perpetually sad introvert. The nanny is a mentally impaired midget who frets over literally nothing. The doctor patronizes every other character. The only character described even the least bit attractive is afflicted with a bane that causes her to prematurely age before the book is complete. The only characters I sort of liked were the head servant for having a halfway interesting personal story and the aunts because of their downright comical openness about murdering their step sister.
I have enjoyed books that I couldn't care to finish more than this one. I only persevered out of a morbid curiosity that this was an exceptionally dramatized shaggy dog story. And I was sort of right. The first and last chapters follow a museum curator who is largely forgotten by the castle. In the beginning he is informed that the titular character Titus Groan was born and in the last chapter he watches Titus be crowned earl one year later, being shocked that an entire year went by with zero human contact and wondering if he missed anything. I can confidently tell you Rottcodd, no, you didn't miss anything.

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Decent story if you can get past the narrator

Revisado: 09-29-18

The narrator was just ok. Her male voices all sounded like old men. I thought she did a good job on the narrator parts and the women's voices, but it was hard to get used to the sexy male lead sounding like a creaky old man.

Overall I mostly enjoyed the story and was able to get past the narrator. I wouldn't seek this narrator out again though.

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Romantic and laugh out loud funny

Revisado: 07-28-18

Amazing narrator, loved the story as well. Great romance and steamy sex scenes. Overall one of the best romance audiobooks I've listened to, and probably the only one that literally made me laugh out loud at multiple points. I highly recommend this audiobook.

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A frustrating read

Revisado: 01-08-18

If you’ve listened to books by J.R. Ward before, how does this one compare?

It just isn't as good. I love the Black Dagger Brotherhood series (and the spinoff series, Legacy?), but this was just disappointing. I didn't even finish this audiobook, even though I tried. I got most of the way through (maybe 4 chapters left), and I was SO BORED. Some of the characters were interesting but the plot was really slow and drawn out. This book could have been half the length and not lost any real content.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Maybe - the concept is interesting, but the book just went around in circles. A frustrating read.

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Decent continuation of the series

Revisado: 11-26-17

This book was alright, but I probably won't continue with the series. The story is interesting even though it's predictable, but it seems like the author has just started copy pasting the sex scenes and only changing minor details. This book wasn't bad, but it didn't leave me wanting more.

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