Eric

Multiple layers - on par with Big Little Lies

Revisado: 03-17-25

This was a truly absorbing listen. I consider Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies one of the most elegant and multifaceted conclusion of recent fiction. This book's ending is on par with that level of pulling all kinds of different threads together. It was just a pleasure to see. Nobody was what they seemed at first, well, with one or two exceptions that remain nameless to avoid spoliers. A great listen.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Not a sci-fi kind of guy, yet ...

Revisado: 07-30-24

Yeah, there is nothing in the summaries that tell you this has sci-fi in it, so sorry for the spoiler. That part comes in pretty early, though. A multifaceted stroll through history, humor, morality, poignancy, and imagination through the ideas of a female detective in Barstow who seems both complicated and simple. And of course, through the eyes of the many other characters. Not great literature, but a truly excellent listen.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

What an immersive story that comes together. Wow

Revisado: 07-05-24

I will not recap plot elements but simply note that this story brings some of the grittier elements of Mumbai culture and society to life the way Lonesome Dove brought the 1800's cowboy west in the US to life for so many. This is an intricate story, and most will replay parts unless they are paying full attention. The characters take form and develop. I found it useful to have the kindle version handy - Whispersync is great - and regularly referred to the list of characters.

This was a sophisticated and deeply engaging mystery. The pieces all came together, and in poignant and moving ways. And, well, Sneha Mathan is simply one of Audible's best narrators ever, especially for any books set in India.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Good, but not close to her best

Revisado: 02-26-23

I have listened to the pivotal desert scene in Jane Harper's Lost Man several times. It had so many layers and was so powerful. In Exiles, the pivotal scene was fine but not compelling, and it took far too many uninteresting or needless diversions to get there. She is a great writer, of course. I have listened to most or all of what she has on audible. She does have a tendency to put extra filler into the story. Usually it is ok. This time, not so much. Overall plot line = very clever, though.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

The two camps of reviewers ...

Revisado: 08-20-22

Well, I don't think I will listen to a Gentleman in Moscow. I loved Lincoln Highway too much. It seems that GIM fans did not really take to this adventure very much, and some fans of Lincoln Highway like it a lot more than GIM. Funny how books elicit different responses, even from the same author.

So many of the Lincoln Highway storylines and passages would blindside me with poignancy and insight. Without making a spoiler, I can say the mental soliloquy involving Abacus and a diamond, and especially the soliloquy's abrupt interruption by Ulysses, was profoundly moving.

I grew up in the midwest one generation after this story's timeframe, so there was great resonance with the setting. The writing was magical.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

So far, excellent because.... / review remains

Revisado: 12-31-20

I have thumbed through the no-spoiler reviews since I am still in the first half of this. I will edit the review when finished. Like most other listeners, I find this to be a great story, though I am not a listen-to-it-all-in-one-sitting kind of person. But so far, some things that might be useful to know... the context of a mathematician working with a doctoral student on an exotic proof is actually drawn well here. The university politics are portrayed accurately. The cascading errors in judgment by the protagonist are believable and human. More would be a spoiler, but Barelli is spinning a great story so far.

Update. Well, I wound up listening through the second half mostly at once, after all. The story quality waned a bit as we were asked to consider the protaganist's unbroken string of reverse common sense events to be even remotely believable, along with the litany of difficulties she experienced and/or brought on herself. Beginning about two hours left in the story, though, as the story lines started moving towards resolution, the book returned to and exceeded its prior form. Ever read a story where you could not imagine how everything comes together at the end without seeming insultingly incredible, but then the author actually pulled it off with a terrific ending? Happened here. The author pulled it off. So nice.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 13 personas

Spaghetti on steroids; encourage a pass

Revisado: 12-29-20

My listen was hindered by having just finished Robicheaux by James Lee Burke. In his mid-80s with a lifetime of brilliant, elegant, and poetically elegiac bayou mystery writing in his quiver, he sets a high standard. Starting Trust No One was a step down and made me think of the smart college composition class student who has hitting all the technical checkboxes but not adding up to anything approaching greatness. Obviously this author knows how to build an audience though. And, on the plus side, the story was usually interesting when it was clear who was doing what. For the first time in several hundred audible fiction books, I had to write out the characters and how they related to each other. There were too many relationships and plot lines that did not blend naturally. I don't mind countless characters, but things need to fit together more coherently. Or maybe it was just user error, since I see so many other reviewers liked the book a lot :) Ending had too many contrived conveniences (I hope that does not constitute a spoiler) to be satisfying.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Great story but I did listen ahead, because ...

Revisado: 09-01-20

I appreciate the many glowing reviews for this book, and recognition of the many twists and turns in it. But after a couple of hours of getting into the main part of the story, I realized that I simply did not have a stomach for the nastiness and treachery that I knew was going to take place for the several months prior to the climactic scenes and aftermath. Maybe that means I am not a real listener to suspense, but, um, that's ok. I listened far enough to understand virtually all the main threads as they came together in the ending. That ending was quite good and did have some more twists. I rarely give 5 star ratings. This is a solid listen, especially if one permits one's self the "skip the middle" option that I happily took.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Addictive

Revisado: 11-15-19

Addictive even if you can't root for the characters. Well, you will be rooting for characters by the end. Not all :) Maybe this is a beach read that sneaks into the middle of a busy autumn work week. On other reviews - yes, the narrator was too sing-songy or had too much forced cheeriness in parts of the dialog. No, not being a 20-something did not do injustice to the narrator- we make those mental adjustments all the time for gender and age. Apart from the forced cheeriness at times, the narrator was great. The story was hard to believe, but the truth is that suburban soap operas in real life are pretty hard to believe. Maybe not quite as contrived, but this was not so far off the believability scale to keep it from being something you could't put down. The ending was not as nuanced or multilayered as the world standard ending found in Big Little Lies, but it had its own intricacies and satisfaction - it was exceedingly well-done. Way worth the credit.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Difficult to put down

Revisado: 08-17-19

This was a story that was truly difficult to put down. Not that it was a fantastic story, but it was very good. The people who are complaining that they figured out the plot part way through may not quite understand that the author was leading them to plot resolution well before the end of the story - likely to keep with the irony at the end, when person A tells person B that "I was leading you here all along" to the astonishment of person B in the final pages of the book.

The cleverness of the story came from two seemingly entirely different accounts of apparently the same events. Wildly different. Yes, the Latina accent was a no-go. Nice to see a church not get totally savaged in a gritty novel like this.

Not great literature, but a really good listen, a satisfying resolution, and some clever twists even if you figured out the main riddle.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 38 personas