Trenton Bennett

Haunting and Visceral

Revisado: 03-31-22

There's this vibe that hit me early into "Lies in Bone" - it's

"The Brady Bunch, only Silent Hill - two kids confirmed dead, one missing, and one just sits in the corner, staring at the wall. He softly sings lullabyes when you spoon-feed him,"

Natalie Symons' writing is both immersive and disturbing, in part because these people are believable. I feel like I've been in desperate places like the town of Slippery Elm, where winters aren't lovely clouds of puffy white snowflakes but instead seem to punctuate the hard cold with wet gray slush the color of the stillborn sky. Very strong Stephen King vibes that grow the more you learn about the darkness that has engulfed this town and everybody in it.

The narrator Tawny Platis has a taut delivery that keeps your attention. She voices distinct characters and the kids really stand out as particularly good performances--Chuck and dAnny sound like their ages, as does "Boots", younger sister to the main character "Frank" (Francis). The audiobook feels like that perfect convergence of an author who knows how to weave a thick aesthetic and a narrator who "gets it" and knows how to make that aesthetic come out in the recording.

This title does not have musical flourishes or sound effects - it's just you and the narrator. It's perfect for this kind of story and the narration.

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A helpful non-political review (I hope!)

Revisado: 09-18-20

As an audiobook narrator, I listen to a variety of top-drawer titles, so I didn't go into "Fear" with a particular agenda.
There's nothing shocking and revelatory in here that would change your position on Trump: if you're a fan, you're going to have more moments of him being exactly as you'd expect him to be than times that Woodward's recounting of the situation might trigger you. If you're not a fan, there's no smoking gun here that's going to leave you shocked and reaching for social media to share the news.
What we get instead is a truly fascinating look not only into how this Administration came to power and built their own house from whole cloth, but also into what it's like to be a President of the United States. We get insider views of events we've all watched unfold in the news and, because this President is new to politics, by proxy we get walked through some of the history behind the conversations from the points of view of the people who explained it to him.
I particularly appreciated the insights into people like Mattis and Bannon, how the people around Trump had side conversations and shook out their own pecking order, how they dealt with a non-politician with a disdain for the phrase "you can't do that". A closer look at Afghanistan, North Korea, and the Mueller investigation.
Narrator Robert Petkoff has great pacing that makes Woodward's text sound like a conversation. There's that subtle voice work that you do when you have real, living people as characters: nothing dramatic, just enough shift in tone so you 'hear' who's speaking. It's not perfect: we do have some diigressions that seem to dead-end. Overall though, 'Fear: Trump in the White House' is highly recommended to anyone who wants a deeper dive into the campaign and first years of the Trump Presidency.

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Scary and believable

Revisado: 10-09-17

This audiobook tells the story of a world suddenly rocked by alien invasion, and the aliens are not here to negotiate. It centers around a typical American family and it's all the more convincing because it seems to walk through what such a thing would be like fairly realistically--I could imagine how frightening it would be if this happened in my neighborhood. There were a couple of times I couldn't quite keep track of minor details, but it was still a good story overall--that might have just been the distractions I get on my commute.

It's weird - the Beatles' "Come Together" was apparently an influence to the author and a theme to the book, but I kept thinking of the song "The Warning" by Nine Inch Nails - this had that kind of creepy feel to it.

Thomas Conder has an easy narrative style - his voice smoothly tells the story, with slight inflections to help me hear the different character voices, and he keeps the pace nice and even. It makes it easier to take in because he doesn't get caught up in the action and start reading faster. I like that. His voice also sounded really clear in my car on the highway, so the sound quality was really good.

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