Dawn M. Davidson

Sexy “Groundhog’s Day”

Revisado: 08-03-24

There’s a lot to like in this engaging story. A “time loop” story could easily become boring and repetitive, but both Wright’s story and Brehon‘s performance manage to avoid engendering boredom and instead lean into the gradually unfolding mystery. Brehon imbues each round of the opening scene with a new vocal emphasis and rhythm, making the elements both familiar and new at the same time. Wright’s writing is like the opening puzzle box, unlocking one new element at a time, s l o w l y drawing out the action and teasing us nearly unmercifully. Even the much-alluded-to racist joke, when finally revealed, serves to emphasize the character of the protagonist’s friend (or “friend”?) as well as eliciting true laughs alongside the cringe, something that could easily have missed the mark. I am particularly admiring of how deftly Wright manages to confront racism fairly directly at several points without becoming maudlin or overbearing. The race of her characters is important to the story, but it’s not the sole point of it, allowing her to acknowledge the racism inherent in our culture with both clarity and humor. Brava.

The sex scenes are explicit, and very much written for a monogamously oriented Fantasy Romance audience. This means that pregnancy and STI protection are never even thought of by our protagonists. Though to be fair, it’s hard to think of the future when you are living the same evening over and over and over! 😆 And of course, being a genre Romance, it has the obligatory Happily Ever After, to take care of these pesky details.

It’s not a book for the faint of heart or easily offended. The language around both sex and racism is explicit. But if you value a fun and sexy story that tells truth about our society wrapped up in a fantastic — by which I mean both “fantasy” and “good” — container, I’d encourage you to give it a go. Well worth the credit, in my opinion.

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A different voice

Revisado: 02-17-24

As many others have mentioned, the narrator for this book is NOT Mary Robinette Kowall. This makes for a very bumpy entry into the story, even knowing the ending already from having read the previous one, which tells the story from Toby’s perspective. This story however, is literally in another voice, that of Tybalt. The bones of the story are still Seanan’s writing, so the characters do and say the right things. But the sound of them is all different, and that’s somewhat jarring. The narrator gets better at Tybalt’s cadences with time, but when we finally hear Toby herself, it’s jarring all over again. I’d honestly prefer to listen to a reading by Kowall instead, possibly even if I needed to repurchase the book. This narrator isn’t BAD, mostly … just WRONG, after 17 previous novels.

With regard to the story, it’s interesting to hear from other characters that we usually don’t have the time to explore. Getting more of Tybalt’s backstory was particularly interesting. Some of the other characters get a chance to be center stage where they’ve always been relegated to the margins before, and it’s interesting to see them develop and change under the changed circumstances.

All in all, I don’t regret using my credit, but if I could have gotten it on a 2-for-1 I’d have been much happier about it, Buyer beware.

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Worth the wait & a good 1st entry

Revisado: 09-17-23

When I finished the last series in the early Pandemic — and remembering the seemingly interminable wait between books — I determined that I would wait until all of the books of this series were out before starting this one. It’s been hard to wait! This one has a better book-ending than many, with no obvious cliffhangers. There are enough Easter eggs and call-backs to make long time fans happy, though, and plenty of excitement for the future. It’s not my absolute favorite of his stories, hence the 4 star rating there. (I’d probably give it a 4.5 if I could.) But all his stories are wonderful, and I love how he has brought us back to the world over and over again in different eras, following the cultural developments of the era. Of other contemporary authors I’ve read, only Guy Gavriel Kay does this (and if you haven’t read his stuff, I HIGHLY recommend it. But I digress.) Sullivan’s characterizations are excellent as always, and he manages to revisit favorite themes (e.g., fathers and sons) while bringing something new, fresh, and unexpected to the party. And, having just listened to the afterward, I am especially appreciative of his wife’s contributions to this book. She was absolutely right, and I am thankful that the Sullivans demonstrate a positive long-term relationship style both behind the scenes and on the page. It’s truly refreshing, and has led to a stronger, more satisfying book. I’m looking forward to the next one!

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Hopeful post-apocalyptic tale

Revisado: 07-28-23

This story is a challenging ride at first, set in a hidebound, rural, post-apocalyptic, religious community. Full of bigotry and intolerance, the established residents of the community ruthlessly stamp out anyone and anything that doesn’t meet their standards of “the true image” of human, animal, or vegetable life. Into this world, however, are being born those who hold the hope of future generations … if only they can survive long enough to escape to safety. Well-performed and produced, this story grabbed my attention from the first chapter to the last. Well worth a credit and the time to listen,

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An old favorite, well narrated

Revisado: 06-29-23

Some reviewers have commented that this isn’t Silverberg’s best work, and I agree. They also mentioned that it sounds like it was written for a YA audience. Perhaps this is part of why I loved the book when I first read it in the late 1970’s when I was, in fact, a teen. I have looked for it in library audio collections for a while, and never found it, so I was happy to add it to my Audible collection when it was on a half-off sale. Indeed, it’s not his best, especially when compared to his lengthy and deep Majipoor books, for instance. And there are parts that haven’t aged well, like when his somewhat clueless protagonist says that “he’s heard it’s not possible to force someone to have sex against their will.” o.0 Fortunately, the young woman pushes back against this notion, and our protagonist becomes her ally in resisting further unwanted advances by other men. Regrettable 1960’s norms aside, though, it’s still a fun romp through the galaxy with a lot of twists and turns. It has a lot to say about humanity’s hope for the future, and some of what keeps us separated from each other. The science is decent enough to allow the willing suspension of disbelief. I’m not sure how modern disability rights folks might think about how disability is framed in this book, but it at least presents the notion that disabled folks don’t wish to be pitied, and that there are many different abilities that people might value beyond physical prowess or good looks. On the whole, a solid and enjoyable book if you aren’t expecting something universe-shattering. The narrator does a good job at giving voice to the young — 22 year old — protagonist, and the production has no major flaws that I heard. Worth listening to if you are a Silverberg fan, and especially if you can score a sale as I did.

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Updated Version is Worth a Re-read/Re-listen

Revisado: 09-29-22

I first read this excellent book in paperback over 15 years ago, in my first year-long training in counseling. I was excited therefore, when it was assigned to me for a Therapy graduate school class. I debated whether to get a newer version or, at the ok of the professor, to simply re-read the one I already had. Having just finished the revised Audible version, I’m very glad I chose to spend a credit for the updated version. Not only is Don Hagen’s voice a perfect choice for this book — soothing and almost avuncular, exactly as I’d imagine the older Yalom to sound — but the updates to the text are touching and profound. The original book was already full of wisdom and depths, and as I reviewed it, I could identify the source of some of the ideas that have guided my work with clients over the past decade and a half. The additional text, with Yalom’s reflections on the trajectory of the profession, and his own, stronger self-disclosure, provided a perfect bookend to the original text, and deepened the meaning and significance of his already significant work. Additionally, I am undertaking this educational journey at a rather late stage in my life, and getting to experience secondhand some of Yalom’s own growth and development helps to reassure me that it’s not too late for me … nor for any potential future clients of mine, whatever their calendar age. I’m still not certain how to navigate the increasingly rigid managed care environment, but it’s comforting to know that Yalom also both struggled with it, and found ways to navigate around it. He also has a deeper appreciation of the revelations of neuroscience than I’d have anticipated, and his reflections on epigentics were particularly interesting for me, given my own long-ago undergrad degree in Genetics.

All in all, I highly recommend getting this updated Audible version of this book, certainly to anyone who is considering becoming a therapist, and also to anyone involved with any sort of “helping” profession. I would also recommend it to anyone who has undergone their own therapy in their life, and wants a deeper understanding of how therapy itself works, and how they themselves might be able to get more out of the experience and the relationship.

Thank you, Yalom, Hagen, and Audible for making this outstanding book, performance, and production available, and at such a reasonable cost. This is exactly why I remain an enthusiastic Audible member.

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Charming Novelette

Revisado: 05-14-22

This was a very sweet story. The protagonist is apparently neurodiverse in some way, though they never specified. It was apparent that many people around her, however, wanted to “cure” her of the very things that made her unique. I don’t want to give spoilers, but I don’t think it’s too much to say that, although she struggles a bit, she eventually accepts her own strengths and values herself enough to resist being put into various boxes that others try to squeeze her into.

For me this was a fun treat in part because I have visited Japan a couple of times, and could easily imagine the environment, products, and people, all of which are charmingly rendered in compassionate and humorous detail.

The narrator was wonderful, handling the Japanese as easily as the English translation. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s fluent in both languages.

The translation was, as far as I can tell, also good, and preserved various cultural assumptions even when it might have been more politic not to. The strong push to fit in to Japan’s far more collectivist society, contrasted with the individualism of the protagonist and Western influences was deftly depicted.

Highly recommended!

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Entertaining and enlightening fiction

Revisado: 04-09-22

When first researching this book before choosing to buy it, I read many reviews (as I usually do.) More than one criticized this story for liberties taken with the true events. Having just finished the afterword, I have to say that I am fully satisfied with my purchase. The author achieved her main goal, that of both entertaining and piquing my interest in history that I had not previously encountered. More than once, I found myself turning to Wikipedia and other historical and factual accounts to learn more about caissons, Caisson disease, Sousa marches, engineering, women’s suffrage, bloomers (and Bloomer), PT Barnum, Jumbo, and the past and current treatment of elephants in captivity and in the wild. In this, the author succeeded wildly, costing me several extra hours of sleep as I pursued these questions down multiply-branching rabbit holes. I paid the price willingly in both cash and sleep … and also in my willing suspension of disbelief. I don’t believe any dishonor was done to the memory or the achievements of Emily Roebling, someone I hadn’t heard of at all before picking up this book, and about whom I now have a profound and deep respect. It also feels deeply appropriate that person about whom the author took the most liberties and spun the most fanciful tales is Barnum. I suspect that the “Greatest Showman” himself would have heartily approved of this reimagining of events.

The narrator of this book was competent, but I can’t be more enthusiastic than that. Her many mispronunciations took me out of the story over and over, and her accents and voices were inconsistent. Better than I could do myself, for sure, but still distracting. I might give a 3.5 star rating if that were possible.

All in all, it was a fine read, and definitely worth a solid 4 star rating overall. If you don’t mind a lot of fiction in your historical fiction, and you can tolerate a narrator that (alas) doesn’t rise to the level of a Kate Reading, then I recommend this book to you. If not, well, as Barnum would say, it’s that way to the egress. ;)

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I see now why they bundled the 3 books together

Revisado: 12-02-21

I’ll agree with other reviews I read: The first book of this trilogy is pretty bad in quite a few ways. The main characters are selfish, self-absorbed, green, and pretty stupid as well as ignorant. Situation normal for the late teenage boys that they are at the time, in other words. What the author does *well* is to show character development over time. Unfortunately, that renders some of the first book nearly unlistenable. It took me even longer than 65 hours to listen to all of this, because I kept forgetting where I was in the story! Usually I can find my place pretty easily the next day, after falling asleep the previous night. For this story, however, it was just so forgettable that I’d find myself reading some sections over and over again! This is where Tim Gerard Reynolds’ excellent performance repeatedly saved the book, making me not *quite* willing to give up. The first book was poor. The second was fair to middling. But the third book was really worth the wait. By then, with the world building complete, and the characters a decade or more older and with many failures — aka “growth opportunities” — under their belts, the story began to shine. I finally cared about the characters, and the intricacies of the world and its peoples made for a proverbial page-turner. But wow, was it slow getting there.

If, like me, you select books in part on length/value, and you use them to fall asleep to, then Tim’s stellar performance will probably make it worth your while to tough it out to the excellent ending. If you want sympathetic characters and action that takes you somewhere in less than a solid day of reading — or you are trying to use it to stay *awake* on a long drive, however, you might want to give it a miss. YMMV!

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Stunning historical novel with great meaning

Revisado: 09-02-21

One might think a book about Nazi Germany would be difficult to read. Indeed there are passages that convey the horrors, and caused me to wince, or even cry. But this novel is so exquisitely researched and written, and the characters within so well-developed, that it is a real “page-turner.” A truly gripping tale, the story provides tension and drama despite knowing, of course, how the larger events would all turn out in the end. It’s not exactly easy or comfortable, with graphic descriptions of some of the horrors of the Nazi regime. But those very horrors are part of the reason to read this book, lest we forget how ordinary citizens can find themselves turning a blind eye to growing fascism, and allowing and supporting a regime based on lies, violence, and racial hatred. Highly worthwhile and educational reading.

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