OYENTE

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  • 28
  • opiniones
  • 85
  • votos útiles
  • 46
  • calificaciones

Poorly Executed

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 05-04-25

The premise was interesting, but this book was just all over the place.

First of all, nothing happens for the first 5 chapters. I'd actually zoned out until Ch. 6 when I realized something was about to happen and started paying attention. I think the first 5 chapters were supposed to help introduce all the characters, but there are far too many names to keep track of.

The foreshadowing is also super heavy handed. I had kept hoping that the big reveal wouldn't be exactly what it turned out to be. So yes, it's that predictable. The thing is, if the big reveal had been introduced as part of the premise, it could have been used to build tension as the characters try to figure out what's going on.

There are also two other storylines interspersed throughout the main story, and which contribute nothing. The mysterious diarist subplot is completely unnecessary, although it COULD have been an effective device had it been executed properly. The flashbacks are supposed to provide a red herring, but only serve to add two additional names to an extensive roster of names the listener is expected to keep track of. The ending is anticlimactic.

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So Dumb

Total
1 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 05-01-25

I can't believe I actually finished this, considering the fact that I was completely bored after 5 chapters, but I kept going because the high rating made me think this would turn itself around and redeem itself somehow. Unfortunately, the more the plot unfolds, the more the book devolves into ludicrousness.

The first 3/4 of the book is just boring. Stuff happens, but it's so all over the place that instead of building tension, everything feels slack because the threads aren't really connected. Once the reveals start happening, it all just feels ridiculous. The big twist is completely unearned; this is one of those thrillers where the villain is the least plausible character so "youl'll never see it coming!" but cannot be plausibly justified by anything before or after the reveal. The killer's motivations make no sense, but hey, they don't have to because they're a psychopath!

Additionally, all the red herrings are due to ALL of the characters potentially being capable of murder since every single one of them acts unhinged at some point. I'm sorry, but that is just lazy writing.

The narrator was fine. I originally felt they were overacting, but now I think they were just trying to breathe SOME sort of life into the extremely boring writing.

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Disappointing

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
2 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-30-25

I expected so much more from Kerry Anne King, but I'm realizing now that I started with her more recent work, and she's apparently improved a lot since she wrote this one. It simply doesn't have the magic of "Other People's Things" and "Improbably Yours."

I was originally going to give this 3 stars until I got to the end. I get that people want a "happily ever after," but the love interest actually goes from seeming like a really good guy to an entitled, whiny asshole by the end. In fact, none of the adult characters become more likeable by the end. I don't mind flawed characters, as we expect them to grow and redeem themselves, but all the adults seem dead set on blaming everyone else for their decisions, instead of taking any accountability for the choices they have made.

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So Much Longer Than It Needs To Be

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
1 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-27-25

I enjoyed this modern-day retelling of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but the search party investigation sections were completely unnecessary. I kept zoning out during those sections and eventually just skipped them altogether because they add nothing to the story.

And yes, the narrator is as bad as everyone says. First of all, she reads So. Freaking. SLOWLY. I listened to this on 1.4x speed to make her tolerable.

Additionally, I found her accent really grating. I'm assuming it's some sort of regional Canadian accent? I'm American, but my partner is from Toronto and my ex is from Ottawa. I have friends from Vancouver, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, and Montreal, and not a single one of them talk like this. I'm not going to accuse the narrator of "mispronouncing" words as some reviewers have, because I assume this is an accent and her pronunciation would therefore be "correct" or normal for others with this type of accent, but it is distracting to the point that it seems to be the chief complaint people have about the audiobook.

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This Wants to be Highsmith

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-22-25

I don't know what the rest of Lisa Unger's work is like, but this definitely felt like she was trying to channel Patricia Highsmith, particularly This Sweet Sickness. Of course, this lacks this finesse of Highsmith's work, although Unger does a solid job of creating a tense, foreboding tone.

Narrator is solid. Writing is solid. Story is... honestly maybe a retelling of This Sweet Sickness? Not only are the plot and narrative voice similar, the characters are named Anisa/Annabelle and Emily/Effie. Coincidence?

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Read, Donʻt Listen!

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
1 out of 5 stars
Historia
5 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-20-25

I nearly DNF just a few chapters in because of how bad the narration was, but decided to switch to reading in case thatʻs why I was struggling with this one, and Iʻm so glad I did.

Others have called the narrator monotone; I didn't have a problem with that so much as the weird, random, long pauses. On more than one occasion I thought my audio had frozen. I've seen some reviewers complain about the writing, and I will admit that the sentence structure is sometimes clunky, but not so much that I couldn't enjoy the story.

As far as the story goes, this definitely isn't a campy beach read thriller. There are some weird, gothic elements, and this absolutely is a commentary on how white-dominated "wellness" culture appropriates Eastern spirituality and repackages it to sell at exorbitant prices, often back at the people the practices were stolen from (we have an early scene of the desi protagonist attempting to learn yoga from a white instructor with a BRITISH accent).

*potential spoilers below*

A lot of the negative reviewers seem to be upset about "anti-white racism." This book isnʻt anti-white. Itʻs anti-abuse. The protagonist is subjected to two forms of abuse: one familial, i.e. someone who is also Pakistani; the other cultural, i.e. wealthy whites exploiting Eastern cultural practices. The protagonist disavows her blood family (brown), to lay roots in her chosen community (white). The author shows us problematic elements of both cultures and how they have harmed the protagonist, but also shows us how the protagonist chooses to embrace aspects of both.

If you are triggered by scenes of interpersonal violence, you may want to proceed with caution. If youʻre someone who thinks calling out the white-dominated wellness industry translates as "all white people are bad," this is probably not for you. If you can handle both those things, and some weird supernatural elements, I highly recommend this. There was one major twist at the end that I did not see coming, and that almost never happens. Yes, thereʻs a LOT going on in this book, but I really do think the author pulls it off.

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We're All Damaged... By This Book

Total
2 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
3 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-19-25

I made it to chapter 15 before I just had to stop. Yes, the protagonist is an immature hot mess, but I figured that was ok because he's supposed to grow. And the people around him know he's an immature hot mess, so that means the author intended it that way. But the main character is also one of those white guys who THINKS he's so progressive and an ally, but then is just casually racist, xenophobic, sexist, and homophobic, but of course doesn't think he is. It doesn't feel like the author intended for Andy to go around describing every non-white, non-male, non-American, non-straight person in the most stereotypical terms possible, so every time he does it, it just feels icky.

Two stars because some of the "quirky" stuff was genuinely funny to me. Dad and the squirrels was the best part of the book I managed to make it through.

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Trigger Warning/Spoilers

Total
4 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
4 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-13-25

Audible was right to classify this under "literature and fiction", rather than "thriller," as it's listed on Amazon. While yes, there is a mystery at the center of the novel, it's not twisty and suspenseful.

Drowning With Others is actually an exploration of abuse, and takes us on the journey of being groomed from the student's perspective. I am not a survivor of grooming myself, but found the passages where the student describes her "romance" to be extremely uncomfortable to listen to; if you are triggered by scenes of grooming, you may want proceed with caution.

The book also examines themes of justice, privilege, and power through an interesting conceit: a class of high school students investigating a decades-old death. This allows the author to tell the story from the perspective of a teenager as she is guided and/or obstructed by the adults around her. Some of those adults, in turn, provide us with both their adult perspectives, and their past teenaged perspectives as they too were influenced by the adults around them.

The narration is mostly good, except for teenaged Ian. Adult Ian is fine, but the teen version is, as another reviewer said, monotone.

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Hilariously terrible

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
5 out of 5 stars
Historia
1 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-04-25

I’m one of those people who unironically enjoys really, really terrible movies. But this is the first audiobook that was so bad it actually made me laugh out loud.

Originally, I thought this would just be run-of-the-mill terrible. Stevie is one of those protagonists that is so idiotic you wish they’d get murdered already so the book could end, but you know she’ll survive by sheer virtue of being the final girl. She was already grating on my nerves pre-chapter 1 (not a prologue, it’s “Episode 1”), but I kept listening because I was interested in the premise. But by chapter 5, the book leans hard into full-blown, over-the-top ludicrousness.

And speaking of “episodes,” the book is interspersed with episodes from the characters’ podcast. This format could have been a clever way of storytelling, but the episodes, had they been a real podcast, would have been lambasted as “cringe.” If you were to strip away the rest of the novel and listen to just the podcast episodes, the “hosts” come across as inauthentic, callous, and completely self-absorbed. And yes, the main characters are in fact all those things, but the idea that enough people would listen to their vapid musings for them to have a 4-year run with sponsorships is, again, hilarious.

I’m giving this 3 stars because the voice acting is good, and the book inadvertently made me laugh at how bad it is. Please don’t mistake my rating as a reflection of quality; it’s really that bad. But if you enjoy a campy hot mess, you may have some fun with this.

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It’s Missing… Something

Total
3 out of 5 stars
Ejecución
4 out of 5 stars
Historia
3 out of 5 stars

Revisado: 04-03-25

I can’t pinpoint anything specifically to fault about this book; the writing is good, the premise is interesting, and the narrator does a great job. But there’s just something missing here, perhaps something lost in translation. I found that I just couldn’t stay engaged with the book. It lacks the sort of emotion I would expect from a story about grief. I suspect that had there been more dialogue, and less space detailing with the logistics of the characters’ survival, more people would have connected with the work.

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