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"Little Whiny People Everywhere"

Revisado: 08-06-19

I also am not entirely sure what this book was about. What are the take home points? What is the moral of the story? Truly, the only thing I was certain of is that Celeste Ng has made enemies out of the entire population of Shaker Heights, Ohio!

Throughout the book I found myself not warming up to any of the characters. I think I know which ones I was SUPPOSED to like -- or at least the ones I was supposed to have sympathy for -- but, jeez, they all just seemed so very hard to like.

But I think what really got in the way of my enjoyment of the book the most was the narrater. As listeners we rely so much on the narrater's interpretation of the characters. But I was finding myself re-saying sentences of the book in my head in a different way than the narrater to see if a different prosody would work better for me. There were so many times when she would read a character's dialogue, for example, as though the character were whining, but that just didn't seem to fit -- it didn't make sense given what was happening in the book. When I re-said those lines in my head in a less whiny, more desperate way, it all seemed to make more sense to me. Lim makes ALL of the characters whiny, hence my renaming of the book -- "Little Whiny People Everywhere."

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Performances were so poor it was distracting

Revisado: 01-15-18

After listening to so much books with such strong performances, I could tell right away that the performances by the readers of this book were not going to work for me. Most challenging for me was listening to the person reading Herta's chapters (the German doctor). Her prosody was awful. While I understand that how a reader read's a book is based on their interpretation of the book, there were a LOT of times when the way this reader read the book drew me out of the story in order to consider whether there was any possibility that her tone or stress could possibly have been anywhere in the ballpark of what the author might have intended. She sounds irritated when she should sound frightened; she sounds bored when what is happening to the character in the story is truly overwhelming.

Less distracting than Herta, but also too often off-tone, I thought, was the reader of Caroline. The reader of the Kasia chapters were the best, I thought.

Perhaps, in part, because of the readers, I really didn't like the characters -- other than Kasia. Herta is not a likable person, but still, a reader should "like" the main characters of a story in so much as they capture the reader's (listener's) attention. Their behaviors should make sense. Their motives should (at least eventually) be transparent. I was neither interested in nor convinced by Caroline or Herta.

If you want a better WW2 read, I strongly suggest Beneath a Scarlet Sky, by Mark Sullivan (one of the best books I've ever listened to), The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah, and All the Light we Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. These are beautiful books.

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Poor Performance Gets in the Way of the Story

Revisado: 11-17-17

I may have liked the story more had it not been for the way it was performed. I thought all of the characters sounded whiney -- surely that was not the intent of the author. I also thought the reader did a poor job differentiating one voice from the other. The poor performance was really distracting.

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Utterly Captivating

Revisado: 09-01-17

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

This book has such wonderful, interesting characters -- and Jeff Woodman, who narrates the book, provides voices so compelling for each that at times I forgot i was only listening to one reader. I didn't want this book to end.

What other book might you compare Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil to and why?

The first book that comes to mind is "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett. They both take place in the south, have wonderfully interesting characters, and strike a nice balance between of humor and drama.

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

I don't know that there is anything I would not experience reading the book to myself as opposed to listening to it. I would just experience it differently. Obviously the narration of a book is infused with the narrator's interpretation of it. Where he might have interpreted the line of one character to be sarcastic (and therefore read it in a tone that matched that interpretation), i may have interpreted that same character's line to be serious. What matters to me is whether the narrator's interpretation resonates with me -- whether it works for me. And i loved Jeff Woodman's interpretation of this book and it's characters!

If you could give Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil a new subtitle, what would it be?

A lesson in not messing with drag queens or the dead.

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Great book, poor narration

Revisado: 07-24-17

What did you love best about Daring to Drive?

The story is fascinating, heart-breaking, and eye-opening. I learned a lot about women's rights (or lack thereof) in Saudi Arabia.

Manal's beliefs about her religion and culture change throughout her youth. She does such a nice job helping the reader understand the familial, social, and cultural influences that contributed to her beliefs and perspectives at various points in her adolescence and young adulthood. It is so easy to understand why, at one point in her life, she embraced an ultra-conservative form of Islam.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Daring to Drive?

Her excitement about getting a Barbie doll when she was a child was really interesting to read about -- as well as the ultimate demise of the Barbie.

Would you be willing to try another one of Lameece Issaq’s performances?

Yes. However, I was really, really disappointed with her narration of this book. Manal experiences a great deal of pain, fear, grief, etc. throughout the book. However, Issaq's tone is consistently one of irritation. She just sounds irritated (and a bit egotistical) throughout. I find it hard to believe that when, for example, Manal was imprisoned and had no idea how long she would be held (and how long she would be away from her son, who becomes very, very ill while she is in prison) that her primary mood was one of irritation. I found the tone to be very distracting throughout the book.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The whole book moved me! One moment in particular that I've thought about a lot was when she was finally released from jail. She says that she couldn't wait to sleep with her arms around her young son. As a mother myself with only one child -- a son -- that would have been my first thought, too.

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