J. Forsberg

Magic is real

Revisado: 04-03-25

This is Arthur’s story and it fills in all the blanks from the first book. The author calls himself “the anti J K Rowling” and in these books you won’t find a bias against non-magical people or anyone else. You won’t find children rewarded for ignoring their caregivers. You will find a model for loving and cherishing and guiding children (and adults) to being the best they can be. You will find that people can be amazing even in the face of very real and terrible oppression and intolerance and misunderstanding.

You will also hear a most remarkable narrator! He is full of energy and fire and he brings these wonderful children to life!

I am a cis-gendered, she/her heterosexual and I absolutely loved these books because of their humor and love and truth-telling. And also the magic.

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Chilling

Revisado: 02-07-25

Is there any genre Mercedes Lackey hasn’t mastered? I don’t think so. I personally don’t like the horror/serial killer genre but this one caught me. I HAD to see it through to the end. Very “realistic” and inconclusive ending. I probably won’t be lured into listening to the next two in the series, though.

Narrator is good at both male and female voices also Mexican accents were believable (to me at least). Her pace and diction were quite good.

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Endearing Road Trip

Revisado: 05-10-24

You never know what’s going to happen with Connie Willis. This is definitely not in the style of Black Out/All Clear and The Doomsday Book! But so what? It’s great fun and engaging. I grew up in and around the Four Corners region and later every summer we drove back along Rte 66 to visit grandparents in Albuquerque, so it’s fun to take a road trip with these characters. They are unique and also familiar. When I finished listening, I spent a couple of days wondering what I wanted to listen to next and finally decided I wanted to listen to it again. I wasn’t quite ready to move on yet!

Narrator is great. Enthusiast but never getting confused about which voice she should be using.

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Masterful Performance

Revisado: 01-08-23

I wish it had the visuals but even only sounds this is an amazing and lush production. Authentic and powerful

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Interesting

Revisado: 01-06-23

Fascinating and complex new start. There’s plenty of loose threads at the end of the book that this promises to be a sustainable plot line for multiple books!

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Disappointing

Revisado: 08-13-22

I have longed for the story of Pillover and Agatha so I was excited to see this released. It’s a very sweet story but a bit tedious. I also had trouble with the new narrator’s new pronunciation of some of the characters’ names. Of course, I don’t know Scottish, so I don’t know if the Lady of Kingair is “Sid-hay” or “She-ak” but I was used to the former. It’s at least as disconcerting as when Biffy acquired an Italian accent when he became Alpha. I am glad to know what happened to Pillover, Dimity and Agatha but I won’t listen to this story a second time.

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Story Comes Alive

Revisado: 09-29-21

This is a good story/fantasy about a young girl rising above an abusive childhood and finding her gifts and talents in the world. It has interesting characters and the beginnings of a well-constructed fantasy world. I enjoyed the narrator’s interpretation of voices and accents. Her thoughtful choice of appropriate accents for each character made the storyline move forward very easily.

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Andy Serkis Reads The Hobbit

Revisado: 07-02-21

Andy Serkis is a brilliant voice actor and he delivers the original Hobbit in absolutely flawless style. Of course, the “cameo” by Gollum is a delight! When he sings the songs which were used in the movie, you can almost hear the other dwarves humming along. When he sings the songs that were not in the movie score, he warbles around but still stays in the character of a kindly narrator.

His Gandalf sounds like Sir Ian Holm, his Bilbo like Martin Freeman, and so on. It’s a great blend for people like me who liked the movies but missed the parts from the the beloved book the movie left out!

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Loose Ends

Revisado: 09-11-19

These books are steam punk adventure meets modern Jane Austen with vampires and werewolves. You’d think that was too genre-bending but it works for me. They also traverse the continuum between young adult, squeaky clean to mildly erotic. The author clearly states right up front that this particular novella is at the grownup end of that spectrum.

Of course it is! Like all good Jane Austen descendants, Ms. Carriger cannot let a character go unloved and Genevieve LaFou has a story line that stretches through all the books in this universe. She’s delightful and she deserves to find love. Not much happens in this book except that love story, but I am very glad I heard it. I wanted Genevieve to be happy.

One tiny annoyance (which apparently does not bother Ms. Carriger or Audible) is that every time they hire a new narrator, the character’s names and accents change. Since I don’t READ the books, just listen to them, it is distracting. Lord Akeldema is either “A-KEEL-da-ma” or “A-kill-DA-ma”, Biffy somehow acquires an Italian accent and stops being an adorable, classic dandy. In this book Genevieve’s son is no longer “Kee-NEL” but “JEE-nel”. And nobody has a Scottish accent. The first few chapters are always confusing until I get used to meeting my favorite characters in their new guises.

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Wonderful but...

Revisado: 01-17-19

Well, you can’t beat Ian Carmichael. He simply IS Lord Peter. I am thrilled that these recordings are available. However as a fan of the books, I admit some of my favorite bits were removed from the script. I suppose they have to do that in order to fit the story into 8 episodes. Even so, I am sure I will listen to these stories many times. A side note: the real name of the actor who plays Miss Climpson is “Philpott” which seems like the perfect name for the character!

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