Deb A.

However old you are, listen to this!

Revisado: 05-15-23

FANNNN-TASTIC! A great fun listen! And the whole time I was marveling, thinking, "What if I'd had books like this when I was a kid?" I am 73, and there were no--none, zero, zilch, nada--adventure stories featuring girls as the adventurers in the 50s. What a difference such stories can make in the lives of girls who get to experience them! And not just girls! Such stories will make a difference in the attitudes of boys exposed to them as well, so they don't grow up with the attitude of the evil uncle. As for the production quality, it is stellar! As a former broadcast producer and director, I know whereof I speak. A great job, all around.

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The very kindness I needed...

Revisado: 08-13-22

I suppose I should have looked at other reviews before starting to write one, but on the other hand, I'm glad I didn't, in case any of them included a spoiler. I'm 72, retired and disabled, and struggling with my inability to help people the way I used to. Last night that struggle reached a new, terrible threshhold when I learned of a situation in which many, many people are suffering, and it's exactly the kind of thing I spent my career working on. I distracted myself by coming to Audible, and I trust folks will forgive me if I believe some kind of guidance was at work when I chose this story. The ending was totally unexpected, and, as my title says, it was the very kindness I needed. I will be forever grateful to Sylvain Neuvel.

All that said, since I have experienced the occasional favorite book that became an abominable audio book, I want to add that the production work on this was really quite good. I did some readers' theatre when I was in college and it reminded me of the best of those productions. The actors all did a great job with their characters, though once again, the author wrote great characters for them to read! I'll admit that early on, I was less than impressed with the main antagonist, but as the story progressed all the pieces fell into place, and the character had been read exactly right. Anyone who enjoys stories with great surprise endings will, I think, love this one, especially if they are attracted to the Kindness in the title.

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Great story line, but...

Revisado: 05-24-20

The story line is a good one, but I try to avoid graphic descriptions of torture. There's more than enough of that here.

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Excellent writing & characters, but...

Revisado: 05-26-16

Where does The Sparrow rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top 25%, barely.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Disappointment. I can't explain why without giving some clues about the ending, so if you don't want even a hint, don't read any further.

The ending made half of the story, i.e. the part taking place in 2060, entirely untenable. In this day and age--never mind 50 years hence, short of some totally improbable cataclysmic loss of awareness taking place--no official UN expedition would have made the assumption that was made in this story on finding the protagonist when they arrived on the planet. And even if UN officials had made such an assumption, it would not have been accepted at face value by the people back on Earth as happened in this story. Too many people know better. Had it been set as a private Jesuit mission in which the 2060 part of the book took place in 1960, THEN it could have worked. Otherwise, the author could have left out the erroneous assumption that drives the 2060 part, written it with the correct understanding of what the UN folks saw, and made the drama of the 2060 part be all about how the protagonist and other characters dealt with the reality of what happened.

What does David Colacci bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Terrific narration! I found nothing to complain about and much to admire.

Any additional comments?

The author is a wonderful writer who needs to craft her plots so that they hold together right to the end. Critical as I am about the 2060 part of the story, I still intend to get the sequel.

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Annoying narration...

Revisado: 04-22-16

I suspect this is a good book, but I found the narration to be so annoying that I couldn't stick with it. While the protagonist is very musically talented and accomplished, the narrator seems to have only one breathy tune, so to speak. She changes when speaking as a character, but then it's back to the same old breathy pattern. She has the potential to be a top notch narrator, but doesn't manage it here.

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