Joanna Sakievich

Powerful but deeply flawed

Revisado: 04-08-25

I liked this series enough to listen to it twice—having discovered Dragon Bones first, I wants to be filled in on the protagonist’s backstory details. Spoiler alert: I am deeply disappointed in how See chose to address the baby daughter’s death as a footnote, only mentioned in reflective asides. Her lack of cohesive character development is a tragic weakness in her writing that keeps me from feeling any attachment to those characters. While the storyline in each of her novels is filled with intrigue, gruesome and puzzling cultural details that appeal to anyone with an interest in China & murder mysteries, the 2 dimensional nature of her characters is a disappointment.

Because I have spent a significant amount of time in Asia and continue to be interested in both China and new conspiratorial murder mystery stories, I enjoy Lisa See’s works. If you’re like me, an otherwise peace-loving reader, who loves unexpected and unpredictably horrifying, facts intertwined with fiction-styled, intercultural stories, See’s mastered all of these and you’ll be grateful to discover her novels!

But, if you’re looking for deeply complex character development, look elsewhere.

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History made riveting

Revisado: 03-24-25

Lisa See’s ability to see into the inner workings of human beings, as well as cultural influences that are thousands of years old, make her stories riveting. This 2nd novel in her Red Princess trilogy, is no exception. Even though I approached these books out of order, I loved them enough to want to begin anew and listen to all three again. They’re beautifully written and compelling enough to be worth a second reading!

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Timeless mixed with antiquated

Revisado: 02-20-25

The narrator is exceptional and there are enough rich gems of wisdom and great prose mixed in with the ideologies that are more dated, that I finished this sweet book deeply satisfied.

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Simply Complex

Revisado: 02-03-25

First, kudos to any narrator of an entire book, but this one rather underwhelmed me.

DESPITE that, I savored every word. Chung enlightens and motivates with her profoundly insightful handling of real world and personal history in this historically accurate work of fiction. She addresses some crippling problems deeply rooted in traditional Confusion China, as well as widespread atrocities, starvation, and terror which accompanied communism as it swept over the face of her grandmother’s homeland. Her well researched, scathing, and yet, compassionate look at so many conflicting ideologies and characters shows wisdom I’ve rarely, if ever, encounter in a modern author.

Raised in an androcentric environment myself, I felt connected with the main female characters. Of course, our experiences are worlds apart. I never faced starvation or receiving a number as a name…but a similar duality of feelings, including admiration and frustration with my own mother. She, too, exercised extraordinary courage along with contradictory subservience as she repeatedly favored males over females. (…and I have seven brothers. No sisters.)

As a tale of China’s recent history, Chung’s narrative beautifully executed world building with complex, dimensional characters, Chung never defines anyone or any idea as 100% good or evil. Rather, she draws the reader in and helps, this one anyway, obtain a broader understanding of humanity and a residual hunger to be an active part of planting seeds of sustainable change.

Bravo. I absolutely love this book!!

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Unexpected! (SPOILERS included)

Revisado: 01-20-25

Wow—since I’m about the same age as “the Grandmother” in this story, I found myself relating to her frequently…at first. Everyone expects women of a certain age to be ALL soft, sugary and generous and, well, we’re not. We’re human: tired of everyone and everything from time to time as years compound ever deepening disappointments along with joys. (Spoiler coming…) But, when she purposefully poisons an annoying little girl (not killing, just making her VERY sick), I start to see someone who’s hardwired a little differently than I find relatable. As each main character is a kaleidoscopic mixture of empathetic and seriously messed up. Since that changes with each chapter’s revelations, the listener is kept delightfully off balance. We find ourselves in some kind of eerie horror story, peopled with liars & murderers at the end, all of whom are supposed to be those we love and care about most. Sheesh. I dropped this to 4 stars because it freakishly and uncomfortably straddles between humor and horror, making it difficult to clearly feel anything once the story catastrophically ends. It’s like discovering this is a zombie movie or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” when you thought it was a well written who-done-it. Clever, though. Fun, dizzying read. I highly recommend it, especially if you’re a baby boomer like me & like Brit writing.

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Romance with substance

Revisado: 12-28-24

Hardy knows how to blend romanticism with mystery, suspense, and homey humor. His heroes and heroines lean precariously close to tragedy only to survive and live out a rationally happy conclusion. Villains are even dealt a fair hand as their humanity glimmers from under the ashes of villainous choices. While Cyrethia (what a name!) isn’t just an unsurprisingly beautiful and young girl, she’s a mixture of weakness and strength which makes her a little more endearing than many romantic heroines. All of the characters are flawed, to one degree or another, which is an essential element of Hardy’s genius.

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Beautifully performed

Revisado: 10-08-24

The narrator of this edition is superb & Gaskell’s writing is classically gorgeous. Overall, I recommend the narrative for its progressive look at class inequalities and societal issues of the day. However, the female protagonist is just a little too cliche: pretty close to flawless, swoons easily, and, most annoyingly, she nearly always knows the exact right thing to say or demures prettily. Ugh.

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Perfect!!!

Revisado: 08-29-24

This may well be my favorite animal story!!! I laughed all the way through when I wasn’t simply enchanted. My grandkids will LOVE this!

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So much in so few words

Revisado: 08-15-24

While, doctrinally, my Christian beliefs do not align with those proposed by Lewis, his depth of insight and ability to support the same are deeply efficacious no matter one’s specific spiritual or doctrinal leanings. So worth the read and, ideally, more than once.

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So difficult to get this to play!

Revisado: 08-09-24

The story is captivating enough and the narrator highly skilled, so I persevered, but oh my gosh….for some reason after each nauseating barrage of commercials which began and ended the intro and every chapter, the recording repeatedly jumped back to the beginning of the introduction! Over and over again it did this until I figured out I needed to click on each individual correct chapter after the previous chapter concluded. That way, the plethora of commercials decreased & I was finally able to hear the story in its entirety. Again, the only reason I persevered is that, in my opinion, Edith Wharton is a gifted enough author to have captured my attention and subsequent determination to find a way around the ridiculously flawed formatting. Normally, I’d have given up days ago.

A superbly read, tragic romance, with an unexpectedly disturbing ending, this story absolutely deserves a much much better listening option!

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