jb

Single issue review

Revisado: 06-26-24

I’m going to ignore all the rest and focus on the one element that stood out for me. There’s a lot of swearing in this book. And all of it is incompetent. To paraphrase Sam Clemmens, she knows the words but not the tune. And I know swearing. I felt sorry for the male narrator who was really trying to put some juice on this foul-mouthed twaddle.

Otherwise, it’s an historical-ish romance of dubious plot and pedigree and moderate spice. Maybe it’s your thing.

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More “historical” than historical

Revisado: 04-27-24

Overall vague on historical details and peppered with distinct errors. The story itself is okay, so if you just want a story that’s ear chewing gum, it might work. But I’d have a very hard time recommending it for more than a buck or two.

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A Little Bit of Everything

Revisado: 01-16-24

Kind of a sampler platter of the sci-fi/fantasy category. Dragons, telepathy, space pirates, bug aliens, and more. It’s almost too much, but not quite. Nice performances embodying two main characters who you just want to find their path to happiness.

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So distracted by the narration that I’m not sure if the story is any good

Revisado: 01-12-24

Going to have to agree that the female narrator kind of blew the whole thing. I spent the whole time trying to figure out if she’s a non-English speaker reading phonetically, someone with an intensely idiosyncratic delivery (like Jennifer Tilly times Jeff Goldblum idiosyncratic), simply inebriated, or possibly a robot trying to pass for human. Possibly all of that. Drunk Russian robot trying to break into the narrator biz.

Honestly have no idea if the story is worth anyone’s time. Gave it 2 stars overall, because I did finish. But only because I was fascinated with how bad the female narrator was. Author and male narrator got let down.

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Yup.

Revisado: 04-21-20

Not really a sound bath and/or meditation person. But I am so mellow right now after listening to this.

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A fitting coda

Revisado: 01-23-19

This book isn't I'll Be Gone In the Dark. But I'm not sure anything could have matched up to the high bar that Michelle McNamara set with that book. It makes the smart choice to take a completely different approach that still honors the respect that its predecessor gave the crime victims, and the obsessive need for details it engendered in the readers. Obviously something we have in common with Ms. McNamara and Paul Holes.

Of course, the big question comes down to the final chapter and how the DNA genealogy factored into the capture. And the writing here is great. Really laying out how the science and research came together to catch the Golden State Killer. But the book takes the time to retrace the case from the beginning with the vantage of the investigators and the victims (and even Joseph DiAngelo's fishing buddy! Wow. Just wow.). It's kind of like hearing a good cover version of a favorite song.

I only gave the performance 4 stars, and I'm wondering if I should have given it 5. The style is very different as it uses many first-person accounts and original recordings. The thing that ended up bothering me was that the sound quality was so different between the sections (possibly deliberately, but I'm not sure), that it constantly threw me out of the story and it would take me a couple of minutes to get used to the new audio again. But overall, it was very involving, and maybe if I heard more books done this way, I'd come to like it more.

I did really like this book and felt like it was a fitting wrap-up given that we finally know our killer. I will say that it didn't answer my one burning final question about the evidence. But here's hoping that it comes out at trial.

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Kind of loved it

Revisado: 11-02-17

I'm not a vampire groupie or anything, but I do dabble. And it's really fun to see how the threads of what we think make up the genre are all here in this early dark Gothic (decades before Bram Stoker): invading dreams, seducing their prey, the thralls who help them, the charisma. And talk about charisma! Carmilla is a classic bad girl. She's like Becky Sharpe with a taste for blood. The ending feels a bit anticlimactic, but overall it's a nice little spooky (not scary, if you want frights look somewhere else) tale.

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Art and Appreciation

Revisado: 03-29-17

It's a pretty yet bittersweet little story, which I'm giving a 4 star rating, but I'm pretty sure I'll listen to again - which may mean it's really a 5 star in reality?

There's the story of this wondrous circus, the people who created it and why. Which I suppose is the main part. But I found myself more interested in the people who love the circus. For me it became a story about fandom. Why you're attracted to a certain book, or movie, or other artistic creation. You become fascinated with it. You find others who are too. And that fandom becomes a part of your life that you can barely explain to other people. The Night Circus is probably as eloquent expression of that experience as any I've read.

Jim Dale's narration is a perfect complement, as his voice always suggests to me things that are too true to be real, like all good stories.

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Reading from a new perspective

Revisado: 11-10-16

I don't remember liking Tom Sawyer much as a kid (more of a Huck fan). But now as an adult I realize how rare it is for an author to so accurately capture the way children talk to each other. The one-upsmanship (especially from little boys). The curious things they find valuable. The way that making their first moral choices will way on them. It all rings so accurate, from the view of an adult who still retains the memory of how those things felt.

And really it's just a fun story. The sort of episodic and loopy ways the story is told (where the narrative backtracks on itself as we switch points of view in the same incident) feel surprisingly modern.

The cultural differences (use of the "n" word, etc.) are, to be honest, a little uncomfortable. But for them not to be there would make the storytelling less true, and I think it would be a loss. Also, it's interesting to try to "read" Twain's telling to try to discover where he might have been indicating that, even as he told this story, he knew that the world was changing.

Nick Offerman's reading has a very light touch, differentiating the voices just enough so that it feels like a book and not a radio play (my personal preference). He seems to have a good handle on Twain's humor, and doesn't read like it's some sort of dusty museum piece, and not just a darned good, and darned funny, story.

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Meet Miss M

Revisado: 10-26-15

Somehow in my teenage Agatha Christie binge, I missed the introduction of Miss Marple. Not a bad thing, because it was a lovely treat to uncover now. Seeing how this iconic character snuck on the scene was so much fun. And if you love those English countryside mysteries, this has got everything: busybody neighbors, the cockeyed caste system, red herring and a murder that doesn't get in the way of the fun (I know, tsk, tsk. But it's true.)

Love Richard E. Grant's reading. The different characterizations help you keep track of the players, and keep things lively.

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