A reviewer

Better than Dale

Revisado: 05-05-24

I've never been able to stand Jim Dale's version so I haven't ever been able to experience Harry Potter on Audible. I was SO GLAD Stephen Fry's version is finally out!!

Overall they are wonderful! Such a pleasure to hear these read!! Thank you Audible for finally getting these!

Having listened to 5 now I find Fry has strengths and some weaknesses. He is really great at action scenes and drawing you in with excitement and enthusiasm. His voices could use some variation, though, and I find for some reason a lot of the humor scenes and lines fall flat - I wouldn't have even caught them like I would have reading. He's better when he's being serious.

What an absolute joy it is revisiting these books after so long.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Would Not Recommend - CONTAINS SPOILER

Revisado: 04-15-24

Do not read this if you have any sensitivity at all to young children being psychologically and physically tortured and murdered.

Obviously it's a horror novel set in an orphanage - you know it's not going to be pretty, but there were just one too many prolonged scenes of young and VERY young boys suffering in torment and/or being viciously killed. I had to FF one scene and then it kept happening again and again. There is a way these things can be done which are ok and then there is a way that just feels sadistic, grotesque and wrong. This was the latter.

Apart from that, there's just so many things wrong with the writing and set up. It's supposed to be 1903 which is laughable. There is absolutely nothing historical about it. He just threw a dart at a wall and picked a random date so he could justify all the religion, while everyone acts and thinks completely contemporary. The pacing is totally erratic - jumping through important plot elements too fast then padding with endless chapters that do NOTHING. It is written in annoying present tense, always a bad sign, and jumps from perspective to perspective with no reason.

WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD:

You have been warned.


The only reason I kept reading was because I really liked and cared about the protagonist. About the 60% mark when I read about a bunch of older boys plunging their knives over and over again into a little 5-yr old boy's body, I had enough. I skipped to the end and read the last chapter, expecting to at least find some sort of happiness with the main character to make this horror worth it even a little bit, and was disgusted and mortified to find out he dies. I should have expected it! Of course! Depicting the horrible pointless torture and murder of youth and children was the theme of the book, of course the whole arc of the story would be the same thing.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

This Book is Awful!

Revisado: 02-28-24

There I was, all ready to hunker down with an interesting Medieval murder mystery. I was so in the mood for spooky cloisters and merry old England. I gave up in disgust after about 5 chapters. I would have settled for something decent, but no. This book is absolutely godawful, on every level. What are people thinking???

The writing is clunky, stupid, and annoying. The characters and plot, boring and slow, the historical aspect ludicrous.

Every time I say I'm not going to be swayed by good reviews and here I am again like Lucy with the football.
Please spare yourself the effort and disappointment.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Story is Good But Not Anything Else

Revisado: 02-25-24

I liked the mystery part of this, enough that I slogged through the annoying writing style and grating narration to finish, but not enough to subject myself to another.

I was prepared for another Regency pretender but aside from a few questionable moments she seems to have the Regency pretty well done. I can spot a Regency faker from a million miles away. It's too modern in some moments but overall I was convinced.

The murder and the characters/suspects were interesting and I wanted to see it solved. That's about all the good I can say about this.

The writing - awful. Not so much her grammar or basic writing skills as her inability to create flow and tension and move you through the action. It's like a series of plot points someone imagined in their head and didn't know how to get on paper. The chapters are very short and choppy and the whole thing is repetitive and mechanical. She is not a writer or novelist, not by any stretch of the imagination.

On top of this Davina Porter's male voices--which are most of the characters--are like nails on a chalkboard. She is great with the rest, but most of the time you're subjected to a horrible croaky voice that made me want to kick something.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Narrator Ruins It

Revisado: 01-01-24

This was such a frustrating experience. I've never read this Georgette Heyer before and loved the story from the start. I really, really, really wanted to continue and I was able to make it through about four chapters before I just had to stop. This is one of the worst narrators ever and I'm so PO'ed she ruined a great book for me. I simply could not torture myself. She does not know WHAT she is doing. She races along from one sentence to the next oblivious of diction, pausing, dramatic effect and simple readability. It's like it's all simply one long unbroken paragraph of text on a page. Her voice is grating and characters sound all the same with exaggerated shouty voices.

It is SO disappointing that we finally, finally have Heyer on Audible and yet I still can't enjoy them. This is not the first time an actor has ruined an audiobook for me. I wish someone would explain to the powers that be that just because you can act on film does not mean you will be able to narrate a book!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Vintage Chase

Revisado: 12-20-23

I am a huge Loretta Chase fan and I quite enjoyed this! The main drawback as others have mentioned is the recording, but if you can get past that it's a very enjoyable romance with classic Loretta touches and writing. It's certainly better than some of her later bombs like Last Night's Scandal. I adore her works overall but she does have some clunkers where her writing is just not up to par. While early and a little "green," this is not one of them.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Why Did I Waste a Credit

Revisado: 07-05-23

Listen to the 1 Star reviews. This is terrible.

I so wanted to enjoy a nice long historical mystery so I suspended misgivings for the first chapter, hoping it would get better. Nope.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Awful All Around

Revisado: 06-13-23

I love John Boyne so I hate writing a negative review but I really disliked this book. The whole thing from the writing to the characters to the story was just tedious. Most of the time I was thinking When will this be over???

I was extremely disappointed in the quality of writing. The main character says "I sighed" three times on one page! Whenever you have characters sighing, swallowing, chewing food, nodding or shaking their heads to fill up space you know you are reading something bad. Where is the editor? This is not the quality I expect of John Boyne. The pace is so slow, plodding and repetitive, the details superficial or meaningless. It was a chore to listen to.

Example: Two women are having an important discussion about something that happened in the past over tea. It's what they're saying that matters, but he keeps bogging the scene down with extremely bland, tedious verbiage about the tea, like "I picked up the pot of water from the tray, poured the steaming water into the cups, watching the steam rise as we stirred our spoons." He does this constantly! The details about the tea do not matter!

The overall plot was nothing to get excited about. You are much better off reading the Turn of the Screw. That's what he was aiming for but like someone said it ended up more like Ghostbusters.

A word about the narrator: She has a lovely voice, but she sounds about 60 when this character is supposed to be 21! it seriously needed a young reader.

I have greatly enjoyed three other books by him, but this one is just a clunker.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Hmmm

Revisado: 04-21-23

My second Goddard book. I have to say he is a great writer and a fantastic creator of suspense. Once you start you just have to keep reading. BUT that's not to say I love the story.

I absolutely loved this book until Part III. There is a "historical" element that is fascinating and compelling and i adored the characters. It went on much too long and most of it was completely unnecessary for the overall plot, but I didn't care. I wish he had extracted that part and made a standalone book about it! But just like Painting the Darkness, it then took a huge nosedive once the great reveal was made. My love turned into hate, irritation and a feeling of being manipulated and screwed over by the writer.

SPOLIER ALERT!!


The villain in this was a caricature of evil, so over the top and ridiculous, After everything we go through in the set up, we are forced to be subjected to an insane sociopath. He is written to be so irritating--all knowing and superhuman and of course ten million steps ahead of everyone else. He was a caricature, unreal and silly. Worst of all, there is a murder of a child. I was so angry that Goddard made this happen. I do not think it was necessary and just seemed gratuitous horror. Goddard was much too enamoured of his evil puppet.

He is a great writer but his moral compass is whacked.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Hmmm

Revisado: 04-16-23

My first Robert Goddard book started out smashing, then took a deep nose dive, and ended midway.

The book rolled along nicely until a certain point, and then it just went kablooey. It lost its cohesion and became a patchwork of scenes, I ended up skipping to the last chapter. I had no desire to wade through the rest of it.

Still he is a wonderful writer and I look forward to trying another hopefully better one.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña