L. Wroten

Turow missed the boat on this one

Revisado: 04-01-25

Preposterous and somewhat meandering plot with very little in the way of suspense or courtroom drama. And the author injects too much of his personal politics…these days I read to get AWAY from politics, even if I’m inclined to agree.

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Disappointing despite excellent narrator

Revisado: 02-18-25

I thoroughly enjoyed Presumed Innocent as well as some of Turow’s other courtroom dramas, but this one was a snooze. It got off to a very promisimg start but fizzled halfway through when it got bogged down in too much technical detail. I kept waiting for the interesting plot twists to come, but they never did. The story was flat and predictable.

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Meandering and treachly

Revisado: 10-08-24

I enjoyed Amy and Isabelle and Olive Kittridge a great deal but have been disappointed by Strout’s more recent novels, including this one. The main characters (other than Olive) didn’t come to life for me, but felt more like contrivances set up as vehicles for the author to bestow her observations about life on us. And the observations — while I found nothing about them to quarrel with — often seemed trite. At this point I’ve seen Strout’s grand observational finale — “love is love” — on too many yard signs for it to feel like an original insight.

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Maybe my all time Audible favorite

Revisado: 08-27-24

I don’t know what delighted me more, AJL’s witty tale of life in the theater or David Case’s pitch perfect narration. I was sorry when it ended.

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By the numbers mystery

Revisado: 08-24-24

Felt like a book version of one of those formulaic cozy mysteries on BBC. Adequate in that regard (though the plot was rather far fetched) but nothing special.

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Wonderful narration of a powerful and eloquent work

Revisado: 02-17-24

I was impressed with both Capote films and am currently enjoying the miniseries about Capote and his swans, and I’ve also read a number of books about the swans. But somehow I never got around to reading Capote’s masterpiece, a description that in this case is not hyperbole. It’s astonishing that the same man who famously hobnobbed with wealthy socialites and reveled in bitchy repartee could paint such a vivid and pitch-perfect portrait of two murderers and the lonesome Kansas prairie they inhabited. Capote certainly had an ear for the way people speak and the dialogue is brilliant. Scott Brick’s narration was just right and he brought it all to life beautifully.

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Too little too soon

Revisado: 02-19-23

What more is there to say about the events of the past three years that hasn’t already been said? It felt like the narrator had read the same NYT opinion pieces I did and was therefore treading over very familiar ground, to which this story added nothing. Maybe it’s too soon for a meaningful literary perspective. The lead character, Lucy Barton, seemed to serve mainly as a conduit for the author’s own musings about current events, and the supporting characters felt one dimensional. Lucy kept telling us how loveable they were but we had to take her word for it because they never came to life.
I listened to the entire novel because I was waiting for something unpredictable to happen — the narrator kept dropping ominous hints — but it never did, and the ending was so smarmy it made me cringe.

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Lacked focus

Revisado: 06-15-22

Unlike his singleminded heroine Tracy Flick, Tom Perrotta seemed all over the place on this one. So many characters and subplots …so many different points of view. Some of the subplots were interesting, and might have been developed into full fledged novels of their own, but others were so insubstantial I didn’t understand the point. Perrotta seemed intent on hitting all the hot button social issues — Me Too, LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter…the book felt almost like an apology for any unwoke transgressions the author might have committed in Election.

That said, even three star Tom Perrotta is a delight to listen to, and I was sorry when this story came to an end — an ending so abrupt (and to my mind contrived) I wondered if Perrotta had been under some sort of deadline pressure and needed to wrap things up in a hurry.

The connection to Election was a stretch for me. Election had a wonderful dark humor, which was not present in the sequel. And after Reese Witherspoon nailed Tracy’s character so brilliantly in the movie, it was jarring to find her reappearing in the voice of Lucy Liu, whose interpretation — though perfectly fine in its own right — was quite different. All in all, I’d give Tracy Flick Can’t Win a B-.

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Nancy Drew for grownups

Revisado: 06-12-22

This made for nostalgic though not compelling listening while staying in our vacation cabin — took me back to summer days with Nancy Drew. The characters are about as one dimensional as the ones I fondly remember and the cliff hanger chapter endings and adverb laden prose harkened back to Carolyn Keene as well. The narrator really got into the spirit of things, fun in some respects and annoying in others. Her male characters were awful.

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Cozy Mystery meets Harlequin Romance

Revisado: 04-26-22

I slogged through till the end but did not enjoy this story. It might be better as a television production, which would explain Reese Witherspoon’s interest. But the writing was flat and uninteresting, reminiscent of a romance novel. And the various “coincidences” in the plot strained this reader’s credulity. The narration also left something to be desired. The Agatha Christie character sounded like an old woman, which seemd at odds with the storyline, and the narrator’s attempt at male voices verged on laughable.

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