Chinmay Aladangady

Well researched, balanced, and informative

Revisado: 04-25-23

I wasn't expecting much from this book, just mainly to learn a bit about Chinese history --- basically boost myself from 0% knowledge to even 30% knowledge of its history. This book was in fact outstanding in its approach and its presentation. It cited primary sources and direct quotes as much as possible, and focused on different perspectives in each empire's rule all the way up to Covid-19. It was neither too rosy nor too critical, instead giving an objective overview of known facts or opinions based on the sources left for us to dissect. I would recommend this audiobook to anyone interested in getting a crash course on Chinese History.

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Far Short of Expectations

Revisado: 04-27-21

This audiobook was gifted to me and upon some research, had extremely good reviews. Unfortunately, I ended up struggling to finish this book.

It is very hyperviolent and very overpassionate. Characters literally stop what they are doing to react/emote to a situation. The world building was clumsy, and the book fell into exposition heavy paragraphs to make up for the lack of descriptors for scenery or action.

The action scenes were done well, but none of these characters are believable. One character is extremely shy but is also trained in the sword, which they only seem to remember how to use when the plot calls for it. How old are the characters even supposed to be? Am I supposed to be rooting for bloodthirsty child soldiers here? Zélie always seems resorts to anger and violence whenever she encounters and issue; this behavior is basically rewarded by the plot again and again as though the cycle of vengeance is something to celebrate.

The romance subplot was outrageously creepy. Without spoiling, one character literally learns everything about the other by touching them.... which is a very neck-beardy concept straight from the loneliest parts of the internet. This romance ends up being a focus in the latter part of the book and never hooked me because of this detail.

Narrator did a wonderful job with voices and inflection. She stayed consistent with pronunciation and accents throughout, which enhanced the shortcomings in imagery provided by the words on the page.

I went in excited and intrigued by this fantasy based on a different culture, but the American YA tropes and unrelatable nature of the main characters made it more blood magic than incantation.

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Read the Book rather than listen to Audio

Revisado: 12-05-19

This is a well written investigative journalism story on one of the most grimly fascinating stories in recent memory. Ronan Farrow does a great job of laying out the characters, subplots, and motivations very clearly and is able to let the reader connect the dots efficiently to tell his story.

His choice to narrate this book is great as well since he can read it in his own voice with his own intent. Unfortunately, this turns to folly fast when he reads aloud dialogue from other people in his story.

Ronan Farrow admits early on that he enjoyed writing dramas early in his career, but unfortunately he overdramatizes every single person’s voice. His choice to add terrible accents, cliche airiness, and frankly insulting tones to some of the dialogue really damages some of the excellent material he has written here. It almost feels like he is parodying the people he interviewed. For instance, one Italian actress he interviewed is voiced as a complete caricature of an Italian, and her dialogue is interpreted in a confusing way since the subject matter is so serious. An audio recording included within of actual events from the investigation prove that she sounds nothing like his attempt at imitating her accent.

I wish I read the book rather than listened to Audio. A captivating piece of journalism is undermined by a fairly cheap and insulting dramatization of his sources’ voices by the author himself.

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Way too much unnecessary yelling

Revisado: 07-13-19

Way too much yelling from Johnny Flynn. Maybe it was part of the script? Either way, seemed unnecessary by the end.

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Hollow Story

Revisado: 05-23-18

The narration is excellent, but unfortunately the story is little more than empty torture porn with creative mythical creatures. The story (not sure if it is intentional) makes fairies so impossible to sympathize or empathize with, and then expects the reader to view their plight as equal to the human characters' plight. This story ends up being an interesting but bleak, hyper violent bordering on exploitative, and extremely slow. Although some characters experience a form of amnesia throughout the story, the phrase "don't you remember" is repeated endlessly.

I think it's worth giving the next book a try, but if it is similar to this one, I may not make it all the way through.

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Incomplete

Revisado: 05-11-18

This audiobook is infamous for its narration. The narration itself is good; however, the same character might be voiced by multiple voice actors, leading to confusion. In some cases, as with the Count, the narrations are so different as to be completely distracting. This is not as much of an issue after a while, but there are some chapters where it switches between voice actors and leads to confusion. After some research, I learned that this was due to voice actors only recording certain sections of the book.

The audiobook should have never been released with the incomplete voice acting. If there is a version with only the single narrator, that would be a better version.

Another complaint is that the voice actor for Paul is much, much louder than the others, leading to a constant fiddling with the volume knob. All of the other voice actors were excellent.

Otherwise, this is an excellent story and a relatively well told tale. The background music was a welcome touch in certain scenes.

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