Ashley McCammon

Very dry and slow paced

Revisado: 07-25-16

I really wanted to like this book, but I've tried to read it twice - once as a physical copy, and once in audiobook form. The audiobook got me farther than the physical book did, but that isn't saying much.

Part of me feels like I'm just not the target audience for this story. It feels like it would be right up the alley of a person who's really into academia or dense historical research. But for me, it felt like Kostova had read Dracula, and decided that the most interesting part of the whole ordeal was reading other people's letters - so she made an entire book of just that. Three characters, reading unbelievably lengthy letters and documents from other people, who are also often reading something, and sometimes, just sometimes doing exciting stuff. This is interspersed with our unnamed protagonist and her father going on various vacations and eating tasty-sounding food.

The book does have its moments - namely the brief times that vampires do appear, or a threat is present - but it's incredibly long, and incredibly slow in getting to them. This isn't helped at all by how none of our three narrator characters are discernible from each other in any way - I didn't notice it at first, because the audiobook has them played by two separate actors, and this does help to a degree. But at the end of the day, the only traits these characters have are that one of them is a girl, and they all have a collective interest in books. Give this one a hard pass.

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Favorite Shirley Jackson work by far

Revisado: 07-25-16

I loved this book to a point that it left me wanting for more just like it for weeks! "Hill House" is great, but "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" surpasses it in my opinion - the buildup, the unreliable narrator, the way the story is woven together and the twists are revealed all come together beautifully.

Bernadette Dunne also narrated The Haunting of Hill House, and I liked her equally in both cases. She suits the pacing and tone very well, and does great things with the often-anxious feeling of Jackson's main characters.

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Exciting and atmospheric!

Revisado: 07-25-16

I wasn't sure what this book had in store when I picked it up - I'm a fan of Dracula, the fictional vampire, and I was curious about the historical figure as well as interested by the audio sample for this book. If you're looking for documentary-like info about Vlad Tepes, it might not be for you, but I definitely wasn't disappointed. Vlad: The Last Confession is a sometimes fantastical, sometimes incredibly gruesome, historically referential piece of fiction.

In his author's notes Humphreys talks about worrying over excusing Vlad's horrific actions, and in the end settling on portraying him as human more than judging him - I feel like he was successful in this, without a doubt. His Vlad can feel like an over the top, larger than life figure in his mercilessness or his ability to survive ridiculous odds, but he's always brought back to earth by his trauma, his faith and his connections to the people we hear his story from. The book is violent, but that violence isn't described in grotesque, vivid detail - if anything it's heavier for the implications of what you don't "see" than what you do.

Colin Moody's narration was a big part of why I picked up the audiobook to start with - it fits Humphrey's writing style very well, and he has a lot of variety in his character voices and emotional range!

Also - and this might count as very mild spoilers if you want to go into the book blind - but it meant a great deal to me personally to see characters in a historical setting with complex same-sex relationships. It's a reality that's most often ignored by both historical accounts and fiction and it made a world of difference to see it here!

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slow at first, but well worth it

Revisado: 02-25-16

Fear Institute is definitely a departure from the previous two in the series in terms of tone and setting. It felt like Howard was trying something new (and Lovecraftian) that didn't always fit. There were times where Cabal felt slightly out of character, or that the analogies used for humor dragged on for too long to really be funny. However, it really picks up toward the second half, and imo the ending alone makes it fully worth reading!

Performance wise, Nicolas Guy Smith's iteration of Cabal was missing his German accent, which was a little disappointing after the first two books' audio renditions. But I got used to it after a while, and everything else was spot on.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Very atmospheric & unique!

Revisado: 12-02-15

The dramatization lent a really interesting perspective to the scenes that I really appreciated - it was very different from a typical audiobook, but once I got used to the format it was awesome!

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas