Jay J Peters

well written, well read, but not compelling

Revisado: 02-13-22

Many many hours amid the thoughts, memories and perceptions of an intelligent and reflective American woman in her early 30s with a floundering academic career. This novel has some good moments, but despite spending all that time in her head I never much cared about her fate.

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Masterful

Revisado: 08-17-21

This is a masterful account of the inner workings of USSR leadership during Stalin's dominance, from the 1930s until the early 1950s. It is a story that deserves to be widely known. (It is tragic to realize that during this period some naive Americans gave this group of murderous tyrants political and other support.) However, if you are not already familiar with many of the lesser known characters who figure in this tale, it may be a work that is better read than heard. No fault of the narrator, who seems completely up to a difficult task. It's just that there are SO many characters with unfamiliar names, I found it hard to keep them straight -- I think I would have had an easier time if I could have seen the names spelled out, and could flip back a few pages here and there to locate previous occurrences.

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nicely done

Revisado: 08-05-20

With only one or two exceptions, these stories end with you wanting to spend a little more time in their worlds. Some characters remain vivid months later.

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I've got to choose better!

Revisado: 09-17-19

This looked like it might be fun, amusing, cute, ... . And Beth O'Leary is not bad at putting words together. But this is not so much a novel as a work-up for a PC sitcom.

The characters are paper thin. Our heroine, Tiffany is the chirpy, virtuous victim of evil ex-boyfriend Justin, a stick figure of a character. Justin -- gasp! -- gaslights Tiffany, i.e., he's you know, pretty bad, social justice wise. Leon, in contrast to Justin, is what a male is supposed to be: completely and totally into Tiff but yet loath to make even the slightest demand on her -- "must not encroach on Tiffy's autonomy!!" run the voices in his head. Leon has a brother who is a victim of police and court injustice, a mother who is a victim of an older generation of evil men, ...

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Turgid

Revisado: 08-07-19

As in swollen, congealed, slow moving. Narration is excellent, given the huge cast of characters none of whom are given life by Dickens. By Dickens this was a hard go

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Propaganda done to good effect

Revisado: 02-13-19

Here the enemy is not the atheist, the agnostic, the naturalist, or the devout non-Christian. The enemy is the Christian who settles for less than spiritual Truth in the name of some fashionable principle. Superiority to these distracted Christians is shown, as these Letters reveal how they have been carefully duped by the Enemy. Quite effective for that target group, I would think, but nothing to see here for the committed non-believer like me. Otherwise Lewis is masterful and narration is perfect.

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Excellent attempt to make some difficult aspects of modern physics accessible

Revisado: 01-01-19

There is never a doubt that a first rate mind is making this attempt. The fact that it’s not always successful — at least in my case — is not due to Rovelli’s shortcomings as a popularizer. He’s excellent IMHO. The theses of contemporary physics just don’t jibe with the intuitions we rely on in everyday life. This stuff is really difficult. Kudos to Rovelli for taking it this far. That said, I wish he hadn’t given in to his desire to wax poetic and philosophical about our mundane concept of time,as he does in several places. Less value added there. But definitely worth the effort to get whatever you can from this book. Excellent narration by Cumberbatch, including footnotes!

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Just ok at best

Revisado: 10-28-18

Always wanted to read Perry so I tried this one. The writing is workmanlike, I guess. But the main protagonists are so flat and dimensionless it feels like they were ordered up from some warehouse of stock characters. And never a doubt about how things would turn out. Disappointing.

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Simple review

Revisado: 06-24-18

Brilliant.

Apparently at least 15 words are required for a valid review. Here goes:

Brilliant.

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Good, but something’s missing

Revisado: 03-30-18

Characters are true enough, story is mostly entertaining, occasionally titillating but ... some key ingredient is missing. I’m not smart enough to to know what it is but what should have been moving is just ok. Great audio production though.

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