kanysha r burton

Loved it!

Revisado: 03-07-23

I really enjoyed this audible original. The story was well written with interesting, relatable, complex characters. The voice acting was excellent. I felt like I was there.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Thoroughly Enjoyed This!

Revisado: 12-30-22

The actors were great and believable and the story was the perfect cozy Christmas tale! I really liked the storyline and the Christmas carol mystery. The ending was heartfelt. This is the perfect family oriented Christmas story.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

I wish I had this book years ago!

Revisado: 09-11-19

This book provides wonderful practical biblical advice for dating and engagement that is explained in a way that makes you understand the importance of God’s principles and standards in this area of your life for your benefit and God’s glory.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Unexpected Delight!

Revisado: 04-11-18

At first I wasn’t a fan of the narration, but then after the first couple of chapters the narration got wickedly good. I didn’t know quite what to expect with this book, but it turned out to be creepy and disturbing in a good way. I really enjoyed the story and the backwards storytelling didn’t bother me at all. I kept listening to learn more about this odd and dangerous girl at the center of the story. It was very interesting and the ending was very appropriate.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Unnecessary flashbacks, TELLING, Deus Ex Machina

Revisado: 04-03-18

Where does The Tracker rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This ranks low on thrillers I have read. I took a break for two weeks and pushed through to the end to see if it would redeem itself.

The author overused flashbacks in the story that did not add to the story (did not move the narrative forward).

The main character also did not solve his own problems. He kept being rescued by a mysterious man and his own mystery solving skills did not lead him to the actual person behind it all.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Less flashbacks and less TELLING! The author employed flashbacks as a storytelling technique every other chapter! This would be acceptable in a thriller if the flashbacks added to the story in the foreground, revealing clues, etc (like if there's information the main character doesn't know yet that are crucial to solving the problem and the reader gets to SEE what happened in the past), but they didn't. The flashbacks were simply background information on the main character that could have been weaved throughout the story in a more skilled fashion. In my opinion, they were just cheap ways to handle exposition by information dumping through the guise of showing us more (which actually ended up being a lot of telling) about the character. There were even times when the main character was telling us about his past from information he got other places as if he were there to remember it! Like talking about what happened to him when he was one year's old while reading a case file. It was just yet another opportunity to go further into his background all in one dump instead of providing necessary information when it mattered to the story. Every time the story transitioned to a flashback it slowed the pacing down, which is not a good idea in a so called thriller. The flashbacks also emphasized the same information every time - foster care sucks, the legal system sucks, he was abused, he lived on the streets, he learned some skills on the streets, he was emotionally cut off. Okay we get it. But we got it over and over and over again with each flashback. I understand many readers may have enjoyed this aspect of the book, but it did not work for me for this story at all.

There were also way too many characters doing a lot of telling of background information through dialogue and reading documents about other people. I'm talking several minutes of pure background on another character. It was annoying and unnecessary to the story. I know this is the first book in a series so I can understand why the author wanted us to really get to know the character but you can do that without a repetitive flashback every other chapter. He might have thought the technique was interesting, but the way he used flashbacks in this story did not work for a thriller novel.

He also didn't really employ the main character's so called special power/gift enough in the story except to give an excuse why he could learn something quickly or why he was so smart or basically qualified for the job he was selected for. It could have been a good opportunity for him to really use that gift to solve the story problem on his own, but it wasn't used.

Which leads me to another big issue I have with this book, which is that the main character didn't solve his own problem! He kept getting rescued by the "Grey bearded man" every time he almost died. That's fine if it happens once or at times when it doesn't matter, but it also happened at the very end of the story! He literally gets out of the whole mess because he was saved AGAIN! He also didn't figure out the mystery on his own of who was behind it all and why he got roped into it. He was literally sat down in a chair and told all of this after he was rescued. And I got the awesome opportunity to hear the main character SUMMARIZE for an entire chapter what someone else told him about what happened which included going yet again all the way into another character's background learning unnecessary information (such as they were an only child, grew up in a small town, were in a sorority, yada yada yada). And the worst part about the mysterious man who kept saving him was when he asked him how he managed to constantly be at the right place at the right time, the guy responded " I'm just good at what I do". Are you kidding me?! The author didn't explain it at all, just employed the classic deus ex machina technique instead of having the character save himself. Smh.

Overall there was just WAY too much telling and not enough showing in this book. The constant flashbacks every other chapter slowed down the pace of the book and took away from what I thought was an interesting premise. The fact that this main character who is supposed to be so street and book smart couldn't even save himself was also disappointing. Nothing he did would have mattered had he not been rescued several times.

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

Pretty good narration, brought distinct voices to the characters, and overall strong command of pace.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. The overuse of flashbacks actually made me take a break from listening to this book for about two weeks. I couldn't help but roll my eyes every time we got to a flashback chapter. There was far too much telling throughout the story and especially in the flashbacks. Going back in the past only to have characters standing around and talking about an even more distant past was annoying.

Any additional comments?

The premise of this book was so interesting, but the execution didn't deliver.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Great concept and execution. Great narration.

Revisado: 01-16-17

This is an awesome sci-fi concept that is concise and well executed. Scalzi masterfully tells a tight knit story while skillfully bringing the reader into the fold of his well thought out premise. The narration was also excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed listening!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña