Paul

The reader’s voice.

Revisado: 05-31-24

Loved the reader’s voice as she captures the different characters in the story. My first Bridgerton Book.

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Outstanding Book

Revisado: 01-23-23

I highly recommend this book to readers of all ages. I first heard of the book because I am a steward for a Little Free Library and this book was offered as a Good Morning America book of the month. I chose to listen to the book after my husband finished reading it and gave it rave reviews. We have since purchased the book as gifts at Christmas for our daughter and daughter in law!

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Frustratingly Tedious

Revisado: 05-05-22

There's an adequately interesting mystery if you hang on through the first half of this story, but I have never found a non-academic book to be so tedious. Especially during the first half of the story, every character is described not just by their name but by their origin and often their relationship to others or other extraneous background. Why call a character "Mary" when they can be referred to in dozens of words, often every time the character is mentioned. The narrator saved this audiobook, but it is still hard to recommend.

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Filled with Surprises and Hope

Revisado: 08-13-20

The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals is filled with smart dialogue and surprising results that the reader might not predict from a first novel. Having three narrators helps to complete the process of hearing the story through three distinct characters. Mandelbaum crafts a story filled with surprises and hope that this listener was willing to sacrifice sleep in order to finish the book. Shirley Meissner

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Such a Long Story for So Little Payoff

Revisado: 09-16-13

Is there anything you would change about this book?

This book was ultimately disappointing and depressing. After countless plot and sub-plot threads, there doesn't really turn out to be any mystery, except that the bull-headed main characters pursue threads not even related to the one death that has occurred, managing to lay bare family secrets that destroy families or even a life. Then the primary characters deal with their brief feeling of "guilt" by concluding that it was really the keeping of secrets that caused all the sad consequences, not that they pried where no one needed to pry. Truly an unsatisfying story at the end. I used to enjoy Elizabeth George's early mysteries, but several of her latest have been real disappointments. It seems as if the solving of murder mysteries is now just a backdrop for an endless saga about the lives of her primary & long-standing characters.The narrator was superb, with great voicing and expression that made this long story interesting until it sank under the weight of disappointing plotting and story line.

Would you recommend Believing the Lie to your friends? Why or why not?

No, would not really recommend this author any more. These mysteries have devolved into a saga of the lives of the continuing characters, and the "mysteries" just seem to come along for the ride.

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

Excellent voicing, expression, and dynamics that collectively made this long story interesting.

Could you see Believing the Lie being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

It could only be a movie if the dark secrets are played up salaciously.

Any additional comments?

Lots of build-up, lots of sub-plots, lots of personal issues addressed in the lives of main continuing characters, then lots of let-down.

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Live to Tell Doesn't Live Up at the End

Revisado: 10-22-10

There are some things to like in this story, enough to merit a 3-star rating, but rather than gaining momentum to the end, I liked it less. First, the positives. The multiple narrators were good, particularly since various chapters tell the experiences of different primary characters. The narrator for D.D. Warren was good, and the narrator for the Danielle character seemed a great fit. Also, the theme of disturbed children and the various family and institutional caregivers set up an interesting framework, and presented multiple perspectives that seemed genuine.

Now for the reasons my enjoyment and rating sank. I'm not impressed by Detective D.D. Warren. She seems to interject a dislikable, smart-alecky and inappropriate denigration of people she's interviewing. She jumps to scattered presumptions, based on no meaningful evidence. She spends so much time thinking about how she'd like to have sex with half the men she works with or meets, but would be better served to be thoughtful about her case. She brings her detectives into an operating ward for disturbed children, in the middle of the night, to serve a warrant that could have waited until the full day staff was present, and then blames the caregivers when things go wrong due to the caregivers giving attention to the detectives. And finally, the whole plot started to slip (I'm trying to avoid a spoiler) with the focus on the "interplanes". For me, the plot sagged from diabolical, to simply preposterous and ridiculous. Fortunately, the book ends with a final narration by "Danielle" rather than D.D. Warren, and that boosted the feeling of resolution and satisfaction. Back to D.D. Warren, this is the second recent book where I've had similar negative feelings about the quality of her "detecting" and her tendency to go off on ridiculously unfounded premises. There are a lot of better-written detectives and investigators to pick from.

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esto le resultó útil a 22 personas

Plot Succeeds Despite Irritation

Revisado: 08-22-09

First off, the multiple-voice narration is great and adds to enjoyment of listening. The plot line kept me interested, but Detective Warren became quite irritating, leaping to unwarranted conclusions on the flimsiest, or even absence, of any real evidence. I found her becoming "whiney", bemoaning at one point that she "just wants to arrest someone". In contrast, Gardner does a good job laying out some issues related to sex offenders, and our tendency to overlook the varying severity and nature of the wide range of offenses that can cause someone to be labeled as a sex offender. The plot was compelling enough to flirt with 5 stars, but ultimately the irritating Detective knocked this down to 4 stars for me.

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A bit of a disappointment

Revisado: 10-04-08

I read all of the early Elizabeth George mysteries, but hadn't read or listened to several of the latest, so thought I'd try this one. The narrator was very good, but while the story was overall enjoyable, very little of the detective work really had any linkage to the "solution" that is eventually revealed. The murder and investigation seemed more of a backdrop for exploring the internal and interpersonal issues of the investigators. When the end arrived, it seemed abrupt and I actually said "That's IT?" As always, Elizabeth George gives us characters with real depth and believable complexity. There's just too much of the storyline that ends up having no real connection to the murder or its solution.

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Great Story and a Superb Narrator

Revisado: 11-29-05

I first listened to "Deception" by this author, and decided to try Garnethill. First off, yes, the wonderfully genuine accent of the narrator takes a short while to get accustomed to, but the payoff is worth it. This narrator conveys perhaps the strongest sense of characterization I've run across, which definitely brings the central character and the story to life and makes it engaging. There are absolute gems of metaphor scattered throughout (feeling as out-of-place as a "meatball in caviar"), as Maureen (the main character) is revealed as having a past that she has struggled to overcome, but who has learned a strength and perspective that others around her lack. Maureen has her flaws, but also has an ability to deal with what she's been dealt. One caveat is if you're easily offended by obscenities (though they are much in character).

Give this story and great narrator a chance, and I think you'll enjoy it.

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The Wisdom of this Book is Grossly Overstated

Revisado: 05-26-05

This book is crammed with many interesting anecdotes about the behavior of markets and the average "wisdom" of groups, and some of it actually has a sound connection to the title and premise of the book. However, as I listened further into the book, I became frustrated with the tedious overexplanations that were often poorly connected to supporting the author's premise. There are some interesting anecdotes, such as "academic" studies of irrationality of investment behavior. Other examples are weak, such as an early anecdote about a crowd guessing the dressed weight of a cow. The author claims that the accuracy of the group's average guess demonstrates the crowd is "smarter" more consistently than any "expert", but this ignores the likelihood that inexpert guesses will tend to cancel each other out and then we're left with whether the result of the "crowd" really boils down to simply averaging the guesses of a handful of experts. Many examples in the book simply demonstrate the type of statistical distribution one might encounter in any group, rather than providing insight into "wisdom" of the crowd.

The best portions of the book deal with the author's categories of group decisions, and some of the pitfalls of small group decision-making. A few suggestions were given for avoiding or minimizing the impact of these pitfalls in small groups, though the treatment was so brief it bordered on being superficial. Still... we're introduced to some interesting ideas on this topic.

The narrator did an adequate job, and generally made the book easier to listen to despite the tedious nature of the author's descriptions.

This book may be worth a listen just for the interesting anecdotes, especially if you have little background with group decision-making, economics, markets, and basic statistical principles.

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