Ellen

Want utter plot predictability? This is your book!

Revisado: 08-22-21

Ugh. I hate myself for finishing this book. There wasn’t a single plot development that wasn’t formulaic, dated and eye-rollingly traditional, gender-role wise. There is no challenge to the reader and the only excuse I have for finishing it was that I’ve been spending some time at the beach lately and I was looking for a mindless book that required very little attention. This is a mediocre beach read.
I would be embarrassed to tell anybody that I actually listen to this. Cannot recommend it to anyone at all.

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Yelling

Revisado: 07-10-19

Maybe the script calls for it or maybe it’s a performance issue, but there’s Far too much yelling by too many characters

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If you liked Nightingale, don't bother with this

Revisado: 02-18-18

Within the first 10 minutes of listening, Ms Hannah managed to insert a dozen ancient cliches. When I got to Leni's description of her father as "movie-star handsome" I'd had enough. This author had --insert your own cliche here--: phoned it in? rested on her laurels? published the book she'd actually written in high school? At that point I gave up. An author who gives her readers that little credit doesn't deserve readers who read closely and care.

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An exception to the rule

Revisado: 04-06-17

I've been reading Louise Erdrich for 25+ years, always with deep interest and delight. LARose continues that experience .
I used to have a rule, never to listen to a recorded book read by the author, so often did the author-read books disappoint. Here's the exception.

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Huntington's disease primer masquerading as novel.

Revisado: 06-07-15

This was less a novel than an attempt to increase awareness of the terrifying causes and symptoms of Huntington's Disease. While that increased awareness is a worthy goal, it does NOT make for even a decent novel. Characters are one dimensional and utterly predictable and the author takes the easy way out at the end. SPOILER: in the very last scene a character who has been conflicted about finding out whether or not she was gene-positive reaches for the envelope that will give her this information.....and the book ends there. Really? Poorly written, poorly narrated; the only thing that redeems this book is that it brings to light the ravages of this disease. I'd rather have read about the disease in a doctor's office pamphlet.

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If you're a fan of predictable plots, go for it!

Revisado: 05-23-14

Where to begin? After listening to 20 minutes of this novel, the listener is able to chart out, in minute detail, everything that is to occur. Characters are all stick-figures: one dimensional, predictable. Narration fares no better. The female narrators read in such a saccharine manner that it is almost unbearable, while all the male readers sound like junior high school students reading aloud for the first time in front of their class. Nothing can save this novel. I bought it on the strength of the reviews and was very disappointed. The writing is so bad that in comparison it makes even a mediocre author like Jodi Picoult look like Dostoevsky. Stay away!

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Buy this title if you can stand the narrator....

Revisado: 02-06-13

Erdrich is one of my very favorite authors, so I looked forward to listening to The Round House. The narration was extremely odd and halting, almost as if the narrator had just recently learned to read. The wrong words in a sentence were emphasized, the pace was inconsistent, and it was very distracting. I strongly recommend The Round House, but even more strongly recommend that you buy the actual book and read it, not listen to it.

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annoying narration

Revisado: 01-16-13

The story is about what I expected and wanted as a diversion. However, Weber's narration seldom drops below frantic, loud, obnoxious yelling, and I found myself sometimes yanking my earphone out when I couldn't stand it anymore.

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Unremarkable

Revisado: 07-30-12

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I found the narrator's baby-ish voice very annoying and will try to avoid her in the future.

What could Deborah Feldman have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

The story needs a better( and more insightful) author. Potentially an engaging tale, the book's prose is on the level of a good high-school/freshman composition writer and thus disappoints.

Technique aside, there were huge chunks of the story that the author simply did not deal with: at some point the author indicated that although she was considering leaving the marriage, it would be impossible to take her son with her due to the objections that her husband would certainly voice. Then all of a sudden she's moved out with--with her son--and we never hear anything about her interaction with the husband on the subject. There were several such inconsistencies.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The timbre of her voice seemed too childish/childlike; not well suited to narrating anything other than kids' books. I found it affected and grating.

You didn???t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

For someone unfamiliar with the customs of the Orthodox I think it would probably be an interesting read. As a Jewish reader (although not an Orthodox one) I was still hoping to gain some insights into this branch of Judaism, but that didn't happen.

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Tedious story; annoying narrator

Revisado: 05-28-12

What disappointed you about Forgotten Country?

Almost everything disappointed me about this novel. I rarely fail to be engaged by a book, but I cared nothing about the characters, their challenges, their goals, their present or past or future. It was agonizingly repetitive and drawn out.

Would you ever listen to anything by Catherine Chung again?

No.

How could the performance have been better?

By selecting another narrator. For some unfathomable reason, the narrator chose to portray the main male character (the father) in a voice that was pitched 2 octaves higher than any of the female characters. Worst narrator I think I've encountered in my audible.com history

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I only struggled through it because I had no other book to listen to at the moment.

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