LinZ

Good story, choppy writing

Revisado: 04-02-22

The story is exciting enough, but this is an outline with some dialog thrown in. The author does A LOT of telling instead of showing, and he loves rehashing conversations or events, sometimes within moments of them actually happening. Everything needed to be fleshed out and a good editor would have helped.

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A Rare Nicole Trope Win

Revisado: 03-08-22

This is a rare Nicole Trope win for me! The last two books of hers I read were terrible, so I didn't have high hopes for this one, but it was surprisingly actually really interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat. The ending dragged a little bit, but not as bad as in her other books. Characters were all really well developed and interesting. Loved how it all tied together at the end.

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I do not feel I was adequately warned

Revisado: 02-08-22

Part of what made this more awkward is I was listening to this book at work (I work overnight and can spend a large chunk of my shift listening to audio books while working with little interruption). Some of the stories were more interesting than others, right up until that second to last story. I have found a strange trend where every so often men writing about men in...shall we say...compromising positions (yeah, let's say that) tend to opt for the most over-the-top graphic details. That 2nd to last story went there. I don't know why. Nobody asked the writer to do this. I certainly don't need all those gory details in my brain. Just...yuck. Mercifully, my ear bud died and spared me. I don't feel like I was adequately warned about the content of this book, and I'm a little terrified to read the last story.

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Why can't they just tell a story?!

Revisado: 01-06-22

Story was interesting and engaging enough. I was enjoying it for the most part, but then the author had to go and make it political and feature a right-wing conspiracy theorist nut job throwing a wrench in everything. April May then makes it her life's goal to rip this individual to shreds for making her look foolish in an interview. For some reason, the general consensus seems to be that only liberals will discover alien life and that they must protect it from right-wing nuts, their guns, and their "fear of otherness". I find this trope to be rather offensive, to be honest. Why can't people just tell a fun story about alien robots without having to make it all politically charged??? So, so very disappointing.

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Fun, Clever Writing

Revisado: 01-03-22

Apparently this is the type of humor I like! There were times I was literally rolling on the floor laughing. The references and play-on-words is a load of fun! I appreciate cleaver writing like that! Can get a bit crude at times, but not as bad as I thought it would be from other reviews (or maybe I'm just desensitized, I don't know).

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So Glad I Finally Read It!

Revisado: 11-08-21

This was one of three books I had checked out from the library right before the US went into lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and the libraries were all closed. I tried listening to it then but found parts of it to be too similar to my own anxieties about what was going on in the world, so I decided to hold off. I had this book in my car for all of the COVID-19 lockdown (I'm pretty sure it survived the harrowing drive to Yosemite through the blazing California wildfires with me too), and I never listened to it.
Months later, long after the libraries reopened and I'd returned it along with the other library books that had been my car-ride companions during the pandemic, I found it in an Audible sale and was like, "What the heck! I'll try again!" Let me tell you, I am SO glad I finally read it! The determination of this one family to survive is inspiring! I'm going to be that clichéd person and say I can't even fathom what the Holocaust was like for such a young person, and the miracles that led to Michael Bernstein's survival are just incredible and I found myself praising God!
Amazing, inspirational story! Highly recommend!

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Hit Or Miss

Revisado: 11-04-21

Nicole Trope's books have been kinda hit or miss for me. I've found some that I liked, and some that just didn't do it for me. This one (as well as the phone she previews at the end -- The Boy In The Photo -- ironically) didn't do it for me. I found it not so much "emotional" or "gripping" or "unputdownable" as annoying. The only thing that made it "unputdownable" was dogged determination to finish the darn thing, and the only thing "emotional" about it was when it just wouldn't end. Sorry.

First of all, the "revised" title is a bit misleading. I had to check the book description to make sure I was reading the right book. It's not so much about a woman who "kissed her son good night and woke up to find him missing" as the subtitle suggests. It's about a broken family that is barely holding on by a thread, a mysterious tragedy occurs that leaves Mom with selective silence, Dad in critical condition, and caused 11 Year Old autistic son to run for help into the woods, where he *happens* to meet the one other person in the area who not only *happens* to have an autistic brother who *happened* to behave exactly like this kid, but then they both just so *happen* to get rescued in the woods on a rainy night by the woman’s own nephew. I believe in God and miracles, but I was annoyed by how convenient this all was in a literary sense.

There is a twist, I'll give it that, but I found it more annoying than shocking. Even so, I had it mostly figured out with 4.5 hours left on the clock. With 2 hours remaining, they dropped "the twist" and mostly confirmed my guess. And then it just kept going. By the end, I no longer had any emotional attachment to anyone. I just wanted it to be over so I could move on.

I am willing to try Nicole Trope's books because of the when that I've enjoyed, but sadly this fell short of the mark for me.

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Lots of Fun!

Revisado: 10-21-21

Narration is a bit slow for my liking, but that's an easy fix. Works really well at 1.25x.

The story is light and cozy and loads of fun! Looking forward to Book 2! Highly recommend!

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I'm on Chapter Five and I'm Calling It Quits

Revisado: 10-20-21

Story is fun enough, but the narration is terrible! I don't know how best to describe it. She ends each sentence with a weird husky, gossipy grunt and it's like everything is juicy gossip or sarcastic. It's quite unbearable. I'm moving on.

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Good Overview of A Cold Case

Revisado: 09-03-21

Good overview of a tragic cold case. My one point on contention is it's one of those true crime books that edges a bit more to the graphic side, so just be aware of that. Not the best book to listen to on speaker at work. But, overall, I recommend.

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