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Main Character Obnoxious at Times

Revisado: 08-14-24

Medium quality series as far as mysteries go. The antiques definitely help the story. But I prefer mysteries with likeable lead characters. She is not likeable (and neither is her mother). And she makes dumb (not quite believable) mistakes in order to keep the story going, which doesn't help make things interesting. Fortunately she is only REALLY obnoxious in a couple of books in the series. When she got like that, it was hard to keep listening. I go to mysteries to relax, not have to put up with obnoxious lead characters. This series is better than the author's other series: Supper Club Mysteries, which I really didn't like and made myself a note not to continue.

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I've never returned an Audible book before...

Revisado: 12-01-19

First impression was that the writing was of very poor quality; sounds like it was written by a middle school student. I kept thinking that I wanted to edit the writing despite the fact that I'm neither a writing teacher nor a writer. But I can put up with that easily enough. The narrator was probably OK, but I don't think there was any way for her to make the stilted writing flow nicely, so I won't blame her for the fact that the narration isn't that great. Next I noticed that the woman the story was about had a somewhat weird relationship with her daughter, not that bad but just "off." But that was a small part of the story, so not such a problem. BTW, the story is about a woman and her detective husband who solve murder mysteries. The worst part of the story was how she and her husband bullied everyone they questioned about the murder. They were extremely nasty when had no observable reason to be nasty at all. It didn't appear that the author was writing the story as a way to critique them; it seems she was clueless as to the fact that her main characters were horrible people that were extremely rude and had no social skills. I know that the police can be nasty and that some police are really bad characters, but it is generally the bad guy police in mystery stories that are belligerent and offensive, not the main characters; they are usually the heroes and are reasonably pleasant people. I listen to murder mysteries when life is too hectic for me to have the motivation to listen to anything more informative. I generally find them relaxing. Not so this series, at least so far. Even the solution to the first mystery was boring, providing no satisfaction. I managed to get through the first story, hoping against hope that there would be some redeeming reason the main characters had been so awful so far. I haven't come across that reason yet, so perhaps the author might just be a belligerent person herself, one who doesn't realize how inappropriate it is to act like a jerk all the time; I can only speculate on her motivation for creating these two characters, but that is the only theory I've come up with so far. The main message in the stories seems to be that it is justifiable to be nasty to people for no reason since, who knows, they just might be guilty of something even though you have reason to be lead to that conclusion. The main characters in the story were the kind of people you definitely don't need in your life, the kind you should go out of your way to avoid. In my 68 years, I've only met a few of these types of people, fortunately, but there definitely are some of them around. However, I can't fathom why the author wanted to make them her main characters since she offers no way for the reader to understand the choice, at least not in the first book or first part of the second one. I don't think I can listen to this super untalented and unpleasant writer long enough to get through the second story. I did give it a try just to see if her storytelling and her characters had improved. No sign of it so far, and I've gotten really bored with the second story. I'm going to try to return this set of books.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Save me from dramatization!

Revisado: 05-17-19

The constant variation of volume was bothersome. I was constantly turning the volume up and down. I prefer books be read.

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esto le resultó útil a 18 personas

cuts to the chase

Revisado: 11-02-17

i've been trying to listen to books on lectins, but, so far, they have been poorly narrated, have added too much other non-lectin related advice, have been inconsistent in pace, and have talked down to the reader as if none of us was past the age of 10. Although some details are necessarily missing in this short talk, it gets to the point and explains things well enough for the reader to easily understand how to reduce lectins in their diet and why they should.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Sappy Love Story Set in a Historical Mystery

Revisado: 03-20-16

Any additional comments?

The love, hate, and passion in this story are unrealistic and far too idealized. Characters and their emotions are pretty one-dimensional. However, the mystery that the story revolves around makes up for that; I just wanted to keep listening until the whole mystery was unraveled. I'd call it a page turner if only I was reading it. The story is fiction but revolve around some historical events.

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educational and entertaining

Revisado: 02-19-16

This book added new observations about human nature, but it was fun to listen to also.

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Not a Favorite

Revisado: 02-14-16

Would you try another book from Margaret Atwood and/or Claire Danes?

Possibly if the subject seemed interesting and the price was right.

Would you be willing to try another book from Margaret Atwood? Why or why not?

Probably if it was free or really cheap. Not high on my list though. I decided on this book since I had read something by Margaret Atwood long ago (probably this book), and I wondered what I'd think of it upon re-reading.

Did Claire Danes do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Her reading was boring. In order to not insult Claire Danes, I suspect that boring was what she and Margaret Atwood were going for. I think maybe a boring reading fit a boring life. It's been a while since I listened to this book, but, if I remember correctly, Claire's reading got more lively as the main character's life got more lively.

Was The Handmaid's Tale worth the listening time?

Not so much.

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