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Not bad but not amazing

Revisado: 01-25-23

This is the second Wilkie Collins audiobook I've listened to and this one was better simply for having fewer racist and sexist comments. It still upset me every time one someone in the book attributed their actions to being male or female, though. I especially didn't like the way Marian was constantly praised for her supposedly mansculine quality of level-headedness, or the way she disparaged her own sex. The author clearly didn't think much of women and believed he was being progressive and feminist by writing a female character with "masculine" virtues. As a counter-character, her sister is weak-willed and not as intelligent, but still seen as the more desirable for her beauty.

The mystery of the book was well woven and somewhat scandalous for the time period when it was written. I do see why many writers have been influenced by his style of weaving narrative accounts. As far as mysteries go, it is a good one.

Unfortunately, the reader struggled with the Italian accent that permeates most of the book. When reading in his native British accent he was fantastic, but, as I have noticed with other British readers, putting on an Italian accent has catastrophic results to the point of sounding disrespectful.

Overall, this book is worth a listen. Because of the time period, it's necessary to take the bad with the good, but I still highly recommend looking at the book through a critical lense. Still, it was enjoyable and intriguing.

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Not Great

Revisado: 11-22-22

The narration was terrible. I had to speed up the reading to listen at all, but still found my attention wandering besides that. I would honestly recommend skipping ahead to chapter 11. Most of the content prior to that felt empty - just a commentary on what a "Mr. Burke" has to say about politics in France. By chapter 11 the focus was on American politics. I thought I would enjoy this book more, though. Maybe one day I'll pick up a paper copy and try again, but this time around I was significantly disappointed.

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Failed Expectations

Revisado: 03-26-22

I had very high hopes for this book. I expected a great mystery with many twists and turns. Instead I found a plodding novel with many obviously unreliable narrators, and writing that made frequent use of sexism as comic relief and racial bigotry as a matter of course. To be honest, the outcome of the story was not what I expected, but I wasn't thrilled at all by the final revelations either. Overall I was both offended and bored. I can certainly draw lines from The Moonstone to Sherlock Holmes, but there is no comparison in the quality of the works.
I am curious to read Robinson Crusoe now, though. That's the only positive takeaway.

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Pretty Boring

Revisado: 02-21-22

I found the story both boring and predictable. Once I'd listened through the section with Borden's diary I was able to predict the remainder of the book. While the premise was clever, the execution was tedious and obvious.

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Not what I hoped for

Revisado: 01-29-22

The subject was interesting but the story didn't support the theme and the characters were weak. I also found her descriptions trite. The whole story was made worse by the reader who tried to be overly dramatic and only succeeded to annoy me, especially when she mispronounced words.

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Read a Different Book

Revisado: 01-27-22

I would give this book one star, except that I made it all the way to the end which says something for the author's wit. There were moments when she was genuinely funny; it's just that all the other issues weighed too heavily for me.

1.) We don't find out what Jane can do until 1/3 of the way through the book and not much happens before we do find out. Jane spends the first part explaining how damaged she is and repeating over and over that she was tortured and held captive for 2 1/2 years. That's awful for the character but honestly boring to read about when the author provides absolutely no detail on how Jane was tortured. We just see her physically and mentally exhausted afterward. And (supposedly) hardened, although she bounces back from all her trauma within just a couple weeks in the later part of the book. Honestly, she's more upbeat than most teenagers by the time she makes friends. I found this attitude toward trauma both disrespectful and lazy. Clearly all the author wanted was a weak backstory.

2.) While we're on the topic, I'd like to cover that perky personality with a few extra details. Jane, the tortured soul, loves to joke and tease. She loves pink and glitter and, yup, kittens. She is a supreme girly girl and apparently an attractive one since several instances occur when men talk about her body right in front of her (but we'll cover misogyny in a minute). She is also a complete idiot. When she first meets Ward she can't fathom why the organization would have her meet with him. Really? He tells you on day one why he's meeting with you. You just weren't paying attention. Later she talks about how Ward lied to her too, just because the director told her so. She also proceeds to believe in stories about terrorists on the spot and to believe this government organization is trustworthy, all because someone she refused to talk to for the famous 2 1/2 years told her a story. Well, having just made friends the same day probably had something to do with her decision too. She is so easily influenced by what she is told that I can't believe she didn't talk for all the time she was locked up. This girl has no willpower. I could go on, but the point is that she is not a hero. She is a stereotype. I'm convinced this book was written by a naive 16-ish-year-old girl.

3.) The male heroes in this book are pigs. Ward is the worst because on the first day he meets Jane he starts by checking her out her body and telling her "You're no Jane Doe." And what makes this cringe-worthy statement worse is that Jane likes it! She is repeatedly flattered when men objectify and infantilize her. But when Ward makes this first comment to her she is still a traumatized prisoner who hasn't seen daylight in years. Ward may not know yet just how bad Jane's had it, but he did know she was locked up and treated like a lab rat for all this time, and yet he can't keep it in his pants? Later, when he gets to be extremely protective of her I can't help imagining the abusive relationship these two will have when they finally get together, which is bound to happen in the next book. Ward also calls her "Chip" because he's going to chip away her hard exterior. Oh, God, could someone be more demeaning? The answer is yes, and that person appears in the final 1/3 of the book in the form of an overly attractive guy who persists in calling Jane "princess." He has a cute story to go behind it as if that's supposed to make it alright that he addresses her like a child. And he calls her princess over and over and over again. I would have kicked him in the manly bits after the first 5 times, but that's me. I am not the idiot formerly known as Jane, who comes to accept her new nickname.

4.) This author has a disturbing love of male eyes. "His oh-so-green eyes" make an appearance at least 3x as often as dimples, which are apparently sexy. Maybe Jane actually lives during the 1950's. Her perspective on sexuality and the male gaze is just about that outdated.

5.) Cliche's abound in this book, which is another reason why I think someone very young wrote it. Also, Jane has a bad habit of telling us every thought that passes through her mind instead of allowing us to interpret scenes for ourselves. Wow, I'm starting to consider downgrading this book to one star. But no, I'll keep my promise and give it two.

6.) The book was predictable. I like to be surprised, but from the beginning I knew about Jane's parents, the purpose of the facility, and that she would later team up with a resistance group. It got boring toward the end. The book also reminded me of X-men, only poorly written.

To sum it up, I do not intend to listen to the sequel to Whisper. I believe that in 2022 women are stronger than Jane, men can behave in a genuine way, and that there are far superior YA novelists, ones who desire to teach worthwhile lessons to their readers no matter the age.

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Questionable Morals

Revisado: 01-13-22

Certainly interesting topics for the time when it was written. And the reader was excellent. Still, Margaret, the protagonist, struck me throughout as far too stuffy and moral. She was always surrounded by her selfish and foolish family who burdened her with their own responsibilities, but she never refused them anything. The lesson of this story seemed to be that everyone should pursue their own passions in life regardless of the family they drag along with them into poverty. Should someone be a member of that family, they must bear the suffering as their Christian duty. In Milton this seemed true of everyone on strike as well. Although their behavior was portrayed as wrong at the time, the main characters ultimately model their lives after those of the workers. Henry Lennox struck me as the only sensible character in the book, yet I got the impression I was supposed to think him selfish and foolhardy. I kept thinking, "Oh, Margaret. Poor vapid girl. She's no Elizabeth Bennett." And...nope. She certainly is not.

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Not a workbook

Revisado: 12-21-21

So disappointing. Chapter 6 was the only useful bit of information. There were several times when sentences were cut off before completed. Chapter 2 was mostly gibberish since it mostly consisted of random unfinished sentences of whimsical thought. Then there were parts that focused too much on brain injury, and others that focused on neuro biology without any application. I was also confused about him mentioning reincarnation, and the stars, and "divine wisdom" from dream therapy like everyone will agree with him or even be able to make sense of what he's saying. And some information was just incorrect, like calling cognitive processing a diagnosis instead of a treatment, or when he referred to the abused person as an abuser.

The reader didn't help with this terrible book either. He would pause in odd places mid-sentence and slow the cadence of his voice significantly at other times.

More than anything else I can't figure out why he decided to call this a workbook. There are a handful of helpful tips buried in a mire of technical jargon and nonsense. I'm upset that I looked for help and was deceived into listening to this garbage.

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Poor Writing

Revisado: 12-07-21

The descriptions were lazy and the author had a terrible habit of telling what the characters were like instead of revealing those qualities through the story. It felt as if she wrote a story outline and then gave her characters descriptions of themselves as lines to speak to someone else.

On the bright side, the reader had a beautiful voice; but the storytelling wasn't strong enough to propel me to the end.

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So Bad

Revisado: 12-05-21

Terrible reading of a boring and underdeveloped book. David is doing research. What exactly is he doing? We don't know. There's a plague killing off plants and making people sterile. Wait, but shouldn't you focus on finding out what's killing the plants since that's probably what makes people sterile? Nope, cloning people is the answer. And how are we going to save the world? With underdeveloped characters who talk like they have a vague idea of what it means to be human, of course. Oh, and let's throw in some incest just for the hell of it.

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