Glenn A. Douglas

Hard to nail down an opinion on this one

Revisado: 04-28-25

I find myself struggling to truly understand my opinion about this book. Rapp is a clearly gifted writer, and The Sound Inside was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen performed live on Broadway. This book was beautifully written, but I am still trying to understand the point.

Yes, this family struggled with a great deal of dysfunction. But, we get no details about the daughter that largely escaped it. She’s in one scene in the beginning and then completely ignored. The most care free daughter that is clearly running away from her childhood is brought in just enough to let us know she still exists, but we get no glimpse into why she makes the decisions she does.

We get a great deal of detail of the rest of the family as try to ignore what has become of their son/brother. Even in the pre-internet days, a modicum of research would have turned up the details of what the postcards entailed. Certainly in the 90’s it wouldn’t have taken much work at all. So, should I feel sympathy for people that are clearly allowing this behavior to continue? While we know what is happening with Alec, we get no explanation of why, or how it came to happen.

It’s a dark and brooding novel, and does a good job of keeping you engaged, but I couldn’t keep from hoping over and over that something more consequential would happen.

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Wake up call

Revisado: 11-21-23

This book cemented my desire to do something I’ve wanted to do for a while: get off of social media altogether. Compelling research, data, and great narration. Giving this book to my entire family for Christmas

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Decent story, but why?

Revisado: 11-05-23

While this was a decent story, I failed to understand why this became the sequel to the firm. This could’ve been a story about any lawyer in any firm, and I never truly found a connection with Mitch, no matter how hard the author tried to make one.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a Grisham novel, and I guess I’m still spoiled from the first few, but this was a very meandering story, with very few twists and turns, that ended exactly as you thought it would. Very little intrigue, and the tension never seemed to amount anything because it all turned out OK. Pretty disappointing overall.

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An amazing debut novel

Revisado: 03-05-23

I can’t wait to see what he writes next. Deeply moving, haunting tale of a group of friends from small town America that spiral into many levels of dysfunction and despair. His writing is beautiful, particularly when diving into questions of morality, existence, friendship, honor, etc. It’s not easy to mark a group of terrible characters so compelling. 3 of the narrators were great. One (Tina’s story) not so much, which was disappointing as hers was where the whole story came together.

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Excellent debut novel

Revisado: 11-15-22

I greatly enjoyed this book. It's a story about trying to belong, to the lengths we go to find our place, and the lengths we can go to in order to try and get out of lives that we don't want to live. Ultimately, a very sad book, but well executed, and well narrated.

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Absolutely loved this book. A ton of fun

Revisado: 09-23-22

For fans of Dennis Taylor, this certainly won't disappoint. His writing is fast paced, extremely witty, and keeps you extremely engaged. Ray Porter is amazing, as usual. This isn't a deep story about huge issues, but it is a heck of a lot of fun. The lead characters were well constructed, and the space ship absolutely steals the show. It's sad that people have very little sense of humor these days on anything that even brushes up against their political beliefs. Put it this way: if you see yourself in the bad guys in a novel, that's your issue, not the author's.

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Misleading description and iffy narration

Revisado: 09-19-22

The description of this book is pretty misleading. It’s actually a fairly straightforward story about some people that have some trouble on an expedition to a remote island. The description of the book talks about a “nightmare”, and about the “spells” of an island. It makes it sound much more dark and mysterious than it truly turns out to be. It’s a decent look into what happens to people under difficult circumstances and strain in a new marriage, but there’s nothing ominous or supernatural about it as the description seems to hint at.

The female narrator is pretty bad. Her dialogue and attempts at accents are just bad and continually took me out of the story.

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I'm torn....

Revisado: 03-15-22

I am torn as to whether to continue this series. As a middle aged man trying to figure out how to continue to be happy in a world where everything around him is changing, I searched out books that might include people/characters going through the same thing (you'd be amazed what a search for "mid-life crisis" turns up).

I sympathized with Frank's lack of clarity, direction, etc. I certainly understood his trying to grasp on to clearly dysfunctional things in order to try and find happiness. But, I didn't find him particularly likable or compelling. I found myself wanting him to take bolder steps, to take himself out of bad situations, to take more control of his life.

The book is very well written. I did find the overt racism in the book jarring, a bygone of a worse time in our history. It took me out of the story quite often. The narration is spot on and very compelling.

Still can't decide whether to give the second book a shot......

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Not a bad story

Revisado: 02-22-22

Decent introduction to a longer story. The narrator’s performance is a bit jarring. Lots of very cliched and cartoonish voices. This book is also clearly written and performed by people not from the country it takes place in. Nobody here has ever been to “Merry-land.”

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An Amazing Story

Revisado: 08-30-21

The ability to make science interesting truly sets Andy Weir apart. I feel like I'm smarter just having listened to it. At first, I found the narrator a bit jarring, as it didn't seem like an audiobook, more like a performance. Then, I came to realize that it was perfect for the story. His embodiment of the main character, his emotion, his reactions to strange situations, etc, were truly spot-on throughout the entirety of the story.

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