Bearwife

Excellent

Revisado: 02-11-23

I loved Robin Williams and this carefully documented biography explained a lot about his career and death. Very well narrated, this book left me with more of a sense of peace about losing him so relatively young.

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I liked this a lot BUT

Revisado: 10-06-20

Listening to this book is like wandering around a bookstore, picking up tidbits of information here and there, ranging over the past 150 years or so. There's plenty about romance and the Romantic era, the experience of WWI and II in England, the pre-Raphaelites, and more, plus a ghostly narrator. And although the book is jammed with characters and leaps back and forth in time, I enjoyed the many story lines. BUT Morton left so many unresolved plots at the end . . . which is inexplicable, frankly. My guess is that she was under publishing deadline pressure, as it feels as though she skipped the rather key writing step of tying it up at the end, then going back and editing out unnecessary length in earlier sections. Result: very rich detail, almost too much, but hanging plot lines.

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Fighting to make myself finish this book

Revisado: 10-05-16

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Huber has a lovely voice and beautiful Italian pronunciation, but very little variation in tone no matter what is going on in the book. Not that much ever does go on in this book -- but emotions like jealousy, anger admiration and fear are described in the book, while Huber's tone never changes. I really think she needs to express emotion, and also to come up with different voices for different speakers.

Has My Brilliant Friend turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yup. What a dull book. Very little happens, and the characters are frankly unlikable. Nor do I think this is a portrait of friendship between women -- if it is, I count my lucky stars that all of mine have actually involved trust, fun, and support, not the cruelty and competitiveness and envy that seems to be at the heart of the relationship in this book.

How could the performance have been better?

Huber needs to express emotion and voice different characters differently.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from My Brilliant Friend?

Well, this would have been a short story at most! Every incident dragged.

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Sweet

Revisado: 04-28-15

A very simple and ultimately happy story. There isn't anything terribly deep here but it is appealingly told and beautifully narrated.

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P.D. James Seems to Have Lost Her Touch

Revisado: 04-10-14

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

This might be a good read for someone with serious misgivings about modern church reforms and more tolerance than I have for child molesters.

If you’ve listened to books by P.D. James before, how does this one compare?

I thought this was a surprisingly weak entry. Dalgleish retains his fascination, and the story was intricately and interestingly plotted. I also liked that a love interest, Emma Lavenham, emerges in this book. Having said that, I never really got past James' focus on trashing reforms in the Church of England, and her insistence that it is wrong to punish priests who molest young boys. She even asserts, more than once, that priests who touch young boys don't harm them. Where has she been? Under a rock? Perhaps the problem was the religious setting -- it seems to have unearthed the most unreconstructed of James' views.

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

It is a bit as if Dalgleish himself were narrating his story, Keating brings a sense of intelligent if dispassionate perspective.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Death in Holy Orders?

All discussion of the badness of modern church reform, and even more, all mention of James' views on the acceptability of child molestation by priests.

Any additional comments?

I hope the books in the series after this one display more modernized, enlightened views. I've been a PD James fan for a long time.

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Disappointing

Revisado: 04-10-14

Would you try another book from Jodi Picoult and/or the narrators?

I'm not sure, as to Picoult. This one, The Tenth Circle, and Lone Wolf, all of which I have read recently, were all disappointing. I did like My Sister's Keeper and Nineteen Minutes very much. As to the narrators, yes indeed. Well done!

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

I think the Holocaust was bad enough that Picoult simply did not need to add additional gruesome inventions of her own. She seemed to feel that the mass starvation and extermination of 12 million people (including 6 million Jews) just wasn't over the top enough. Nor did her main character have to be the World's Most Awesome Baker, never mind the extremity of her personal story. And layering onto that endless exaggeration about how impossible it is to find and try Nazis, the inability of an ancient man to die without assistance, and the miraculous ability to spin an gripping horror story from memory alone . . . I don't know, my ability to suspend disbelief just collapsed. Please, Ms. Picoult, pick one serious story and tell it . . . seriously and quietly.

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

The characters sprang to life through the narrators, despite the overwrought plot devices.

Could you see The Storyteller being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Probably, with writers who dropped a lot of the less necessary drama. I'd want to give some greater thought to casting, though I think younger, less well known actors would be a better choice for the younger characters . . . maybe in a TV miniseries format for this lengthy tale.

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A frustrating listen

Revisado: 04-10-14

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes. So much. It is a book that the author seems to have written without any clear sense of direction, or even a consistent sense of her character, so it has an irritating lack of coherence.

What could Rachel Joyce have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Serious editing, so that a story that had a lot of appeal also could make more sense.

What about Jim Broadbent’s performance did you like?

What a wonderful voice! He made Harold lovable throughout, and gave personality to a large cast of characters.

Could you see The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Not unless someone talented rewrites it for meaningful plot and consistent characterization.

Any additional comments?

This book had a gripping start, and it is impossible not to fall for Harold. But the book's revelations were, frankly, hardly a surprise when they finally arrived, and there was a sense of simply traveling in meaningless circles for a good deal of the book. I also disliked the way the author lost her sense of Harold, turning him into some sort of magical mystical nature guru for a lot of the book. And there was an obvious implausibility to so much of this book, too -- for example, Harold's mileage was ridiculously slow, his complete mastery of flora and fauna from checking one book over a short period of time was utterly unbelievable, and his deification for part of the book was inexplicable. In short, this book needed lots of editing.

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Not King's best, but an interesting listen

Revisado: 04-10-14

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

It is among the bottom 50%.

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

This is a very early King novel, and it shows. I think it is important to anyone who wants to master the whole huge Gunslinger series, but it drags Quite a Lot.

What about George Guidall’s performance did you like?

Great job throughout. He voiced even the dullest characters well, and kept me listening even for the long stretches of nothingness that occupy a bit too much of this book.

Who was the most memorable character of The Gunslinger and why?

Really, only the Gunslinger has dimension as a person, and he doesn't have much.

Any additional comments?

I think this is probably the best format to get the first book in the Dark Tower series under one's belt. I think King is a remarkable writer, and he has done a lot with this series, so I think someone who cares about mastering it is going to find this audible version the easiest way of getting through what is probably the least interesting of the books in it.

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Hammering Hollywood

Revisado: 04-10-14

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It is a loooong book, and I think I might have liked it more if I'd read it, as I generally read faster than narrators narrate. But it is an interesting look at the contrast between New and Old Hollywood, and specifically at the time period when Burton and Taylor were filming Cleopatra.

Would you be willing to try another book from Jess Walter? Why or why not?

Unlikely. It took a long while to absorb what essentially boiled down to a snarky depiction of almost everyone and every event in the book. I didn't think there was enough to this book to justify its length and detail. After awhile, I longed for an editor's pen.

Which character – as performed by Edoardo Ballerini – was your favorite?

Pasquale, who retained his humility, humanity, and innocence while everyone around him displayed greed, vanity, egotism, self-absorption, or a heartbreaking level of ignorance.

Was Beautiful Ruins worth the listening time?

It was worth about 3/4 of the listening time. It is a good book. It is also too long.

Any additional comments?

There is a lot to like in this book -- a really fascinating look backward at Hollywood history, what appears to be a well informed rip of modern Hollywood, and flawed but interesting characters, plus a truly savagely funny depiction of a Hollywood producer. But it's not about anything truly important, so after awhile I really, really wished it were shorter.

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Dallas Does Thanksgiving!

Revisado: 04-10-14

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, assuming the friend is also hooked on the Dallas series.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Eve, of course. But Roark is always a close second.

Have you listened to any of Susan Ericksen’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

She really is THE narrator for the Eve Dallas series, in my humble opinion. I much prefer listening to her to reading the books, she is that good.

If you could rename Thankless in Death, what would you call it?

See my review title -- Eve and Roark and All the Irish Clan do Thanksgiving. Or -- Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth.

Any additional comments?

This is one of the more upsetting books in the series -- more than one extremely likable victim dies, and not well. But that underlines Robbs/Roberts' point -- Eve does an important job, and she does it as fast and well as anyone could. I thought this story made a great point dealing with the difference between a truly thankful and truly thankless attitude, and how each shapes everything else about the way someone lives their life.

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