Bibbitty

Did we read the same book?!?

Revisado: 11-23-19

The number of positive reviews for this boggle my mind. Did we listen to the same book? This was seriously bad. I love the YA Genre, but the writing seemed to become immature very quickly.

However what really killed this book for me was the narration. While the sample was great, the narration quickly moved to over-dramatic. It was as if the narrater tried to express the meaning of each word individually. She started to sound exactly like the narrator for "Letterman," not David, but the "Letterman" from the PBS show The Electric Company. You know the one. I kept thinking the next line would be "Faster than a rolling O, able to leap capital 'T' in a single bound...." However, some people like narration that emphasizes each word separately. So if you are in the camp that likes for example, Scott Brick, you might love the narration style.

That said, even with a better narrator, the writing which I kept waiting to go someplace good, was also a disappointment. Who knows there is still possibility that it could have been better with a different narrator-- maybe there is sarcasm or dry humor that is just destroyed by the narrator?

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Solid four star novel

Revisado: 09-11-19

Solid four star novel, and definitely worth using one of your "originals" credits on!! It ended much earlier than I anticipated. While it did get wrapped up well, and there was closure to the story, It really felt like it was the just the first half of what could have been a really great detective story. It was as if some of the pages were stuck together and the reader accidentally flipped from mid-book straight to the last chapter. The case was too simple. I would have liked it to go on longer, and take more twists. Still very good.

Narration was very good too.

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Belongs to new genre: Rape-mance

Revisado: 09-09-19

I give the story three stars with a caveat. It is a decent story. Not great, but if I couldn't find something better to read, I'd consider it a decent hold-over read, to get one thru till one finds something they like.

However, it is worth mentioning that the romance is fairly rape-y with undertones of domestic violence. Especially noteworthy, is the attitude and responses of the heroine, which tend to normalize behaviors that are clearly on the abuse continuum /domestic abuse wheel. The abuse continuum and wheel are tools used to educate women and help them identify patterns of domestic abuse. Something I am familiar with from working on a domestic abuse women's hotline.

With some frequency the heroine interprets abusive behavior as romantic, while also blaming herself for the abuse. Because the heroine is also the narrator, the effect is to normalize abusive behaviors to be something that "it seems obvious a young woman should accept." I think it sets up younger or inexperienced women to accept abuse in a relationship and explain it away as love, or as otherwise acceptable. In short, it is not something I would recommend for young women without being sure to address and discuss the seeds of domestic violence it portrays as well as the "romantic" scenes themselves.

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I returned this and read the kindle

Revisado: 09-02-19

The narrator is a good reader but the voices she chose for Bones the vampire, and Winston the ghost were such a poor fit to the characters that I gave up and decided to read the kindle version instead. Returning this one.

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Dull storyline

Revisado: 08-13-19

Production and narration is definitely five star, Unfortunately the story itself is pretty dull. If you are looking for a good listen in this genre try _I'm From the Sun_ or _Zero G_ those two are definitely worth the time and credit.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

A cringeworthy listen

Revisado: 08-13-19

There are no distinct character voices to the narration (the vocal tone is all very similar), and that makes the story hard to follow. It is hard to know who is talking. What makes it even more difficult, is that the accents keep changing randomly and vividly within the same character. A royal character, for example, will lapse into the accent of a scullery maid. Or a character will randomly take on an accent from the African Carribean, and then change back to a Brittish, or a Middle Eastern accent. (yes, three accents might occur in the same character). These changes are not justified by storyline-- nor do they make sense in the context of the story. They do however, exponentially compound the difficulty in figuring out which character is speaking, thus making the story hard to follow.

The narrator does have a good voice, but the bizzare reading style ruined this book for me, making it too expensive even at the daily deal price I paid. Free would have been too much for this painful listen. It was a real shame because I found the story quite interesting, and wish it had been more followable.

The performance deserves one star, but I am adding a star because I feel the narrator has a good voice and therefor has potential, if she can overcome these issues.

I would like to add a note to Audible: Audible, Please re-do this book with another narrator-- I'd spend the credit on a better narrator.

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Significantly better than the first book in the series

Revisado: 07-20-19

This is quite a bit better than Minimum Wage Magic. The characters become more complex and a lot more likable. I started this book because I was expecting a halfway decent read, however now I am really looking forward to the next in the series. Ending is a cliffhanger though. Great improvement to the series.

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Title says it all.

Revisado: 07-02-19

I found this to be super cheesily written. To me the writing was cringe-worthy. I found that the author keeps things on a superficial level. I would have liked it better if she was able to talk more about her feelings, without all the glib comments that keep things on a superficial level. To that end, there are many points when she switches to talking in third person or a reader's viewpoint in her commentary. It would have been more compelling if she would have stayed in first person and owned her feelings.

Example: " My thoughts were a hamster-wheel, and I was the hamster. I think everyone's worst nightmare is that when they finally do the deed, whoever they were just intimate with, will reject them. Totally exposed, they will see the weird mole on your shoulder, or how your ribs showed... I'll admit had spent a fair amount of time on google before hand..."

If she would have stayed in first person and actually talked about her fears in first person, taking ownership of her feelings instead of glibbing them away, it would have made for much more compelling writing. Especially in situations like the above example talking about her post-sex fears. So it is the writing that makes this not worth a read for me. Her bravery in sharing her story, itself, with the world is awesome. Kudos to her for that. This is not a commentary of how she is dealing with her pain or how much she should share-- it is a literary commentary on what does, and does not, make it a good read.

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Sample is the best part

Revisado: 07-02-19

This is a genre I love, but the narration killed this book for me. The narrator has a good voice, but she read the character voices with such affectation, aka faked emotion, that it made it hard to connect with any of the characters. I tried, and tried, but I just couldn't care. For me this was due to the over-dramatic reading and super-fake-voiced character emotions. A shame because this would be an otherwise good narrator.

It was hard to tell what the story might have been with another reader.

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Story ends abruptly, leaves reader hanging--What?!

Revisado: 05-29-19

This is a lovely imaginative story that was spell-binding, but it ends mid-story. The narration was great, and the writing was five star, until all of a sudden it fell off a cliff and died. It ended mid-story. If asked how many chapters were left to go, I would have guessed there were at least seven-- bare minimum. But all of a sudden, at that point, it ends. There was just a few sentences of wrap-up. What?! Huh?!? The book just ended? But... wha---?!?

My husband was listening with me, a rare thing-- but, like I said, it was great writing. All of a sudden the "thank you for listening to audible" came on. Whatever brought the story to an end had literally slipped by us in 30 seconds from mid-story to audible credits. We had to use the 30 second back-up button, so we could re-listen. How was the story claiming to be over?!?! What was the wrap-up?!? The wrap-up from mid-story to end, had happened in what felt like four sentences. We were like, HUH?!?! He burst out laughing in disbelief, because he literally found it so incredulous.

However-- apart from this very grievous failing-- the story was STELLAR. The narration was too. The narrator really brings the story to life and portrays the main character exceptionally well! So, if I could go back in time, would I still listen to this? Yes, I would, because I found the part of it that was actually written to be so captivating. However, to my mind, only two-thirds of the book is there.

Update: This was a great book-- despite the fact that it ends like a movie where production ran out of money-- I often find myself wishing for something this good, so I decided to give it back one of the two stars I took away for the ending.

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