Samantha Dunaway Bryant

poor mix of narration and content

Revisado: 02-15-21

I'm not going to finish this audiobook, though I will finish the book in some other format because I'm interested in the content. After 30 minutes of this narration, I simply cannot continue. A book like this needs a light touch, since the content is volatile and likely to upset people. Instead, Bell reads it like it's gossip we're sharing over cosmos at a sorority party and I just can't even. Did she think it was a snarky romance?

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Hyperbolic and too long

Revisado: 02-04-21

I picked up this book because there was quite a bit of buzz surrounding it and I was curious. While it wasn't entirely my kind of book, and struck me as quite ridiculous sometimes, there was enough in it to keep me going. I've not read Maas before, so this was my introduction to her work.

It's an interesting world, one where a variety of fantasy/magical beings live together: angels, sprites, shifters, fae, etc. At the beginning, the world seems fairly functional, though there are cruel hierarchies, including slavery. There's been a rebellion and there is war happening in the background, but neither of those are in the forefront at the start.

Instead our focus is on Bryce Quinlan, who seems to be a rather shallow party-girl person when we meet her, but (thank goodness) is revealed to have layers as the story goes on. In fact, that's one of the things that I am ambivalent about in the book. I liked that our assumptions about her kept getting subverted and new layers were revealed and I also felt a bit cheated, like the narration kept secrets just so they could pull them out of a hat later. Maybe it just was . . .unsubtle?

I lost count of these reversals, both related to Quinlan and to the truth about what happened to her best friend. So, overtime, the whole "you thought it was this, but REALLY it was this" thing got hyperbolic and made it hard to suspend disbelief.

But if I went in with the idea that I was reading something more akin to pulp fiction, then it was just the cliffhanger/shock that led to the next episode. The hyperbole can be fun if you give over to it.

Romance was also a huge part of the story, and being New Adult, it takes a while to get anywhere, so there's lots of pining and self-doubt before any heat makes it into action.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in such a long book, it's trying to be several things at once: a romance, a fantasy adventure, a political thriller, and a touchy-feely friendship story. And it succeeds at some level in being all of that, but I would probably have liked it better if it had chosen a tighter focus and cut about 300 pages of unnecessary baggage.

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Excellent followup to first book

Revisado: 02-04-21

I really enjoyed the first of these books…and while you could read this one without reading Maplecroft and it would make good sense, certain backstory aspects feed into motivations here, so I bet you'd like it better if you read them in order like I did.

I was really pleased to see Simon Wolf, the visiting and mysterious inspector who piqued my interest in book one and get to know him as a character and see who he actually works with. Since this story takes place thirty years after the happenings of book one, Lizbeth is now nearer elderly and I think I like her even better as an old broad with an axe than I did when she was younger. I liked the connection between her and Ruth Gussman, the young woman at the center of the mystery. Nice resonances between their stories and personalities, even though they have vastly different backgrounds and lives.

Like book one, there is an open-ended aspect to the ending. While some things are resolved, others are not. That felt right to me--we don't typically get all the answers we seek, especially in situations swathed in secrecy and lies, so it makes sense to me that our heroes didn't get all the answer either. It's on theme for Lovecraftian horror in that way as well, with characters denying even to themselves what they have experienced to protect themselves and their sanity.

A great escapist read. I was very happy to have it during a stressful week.

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Repetitive, but many nuggets within

Revisado: 02-04-21

I listened to this as an audiobook . . .and it didn't really perform well in that regard, even though it was a series of interviews and you'd think that would be perfect for audio. I guess it never quite sounded like a conversation, and I bet the conversational feel would have come across better to me if I were reading it on paper or screen. I ended up speeding up the narration, which I rarely do.

My other criticism is that it's a little repetitive, and maybe could have used some editing so that we didn't hear the same anecdotes repeatedly across the set of interviews. Of course, Ruth didn't tell them exactly the same way each time, so that helped mitigate the repetitiveness.

Still, it was wonderful to hear from RBG in her own words. I picked this book up while I'm still freshly mourning her loss and wondering what it means for our country to have lost her at a critical juncture in our political landscape. I learned about two musical pieces celebrating her that I'm anxious to go find now: Andrew Wang's Scalia/Ginsburg, the opera and Notorious RBG. I will continue to seek more biography of this fascinating woman as well as her own words. I'm genuinely saddened I never had the opportunity to meet her.

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Fascinating world, complicated characters

Revisado: 02-04-21

So, when does book 2 come out? Cuz I'm going to need that soon. What an amazing ride! Fascinating world, amazing characters. I'm not generally one for court intrigue sorts of stories . . .but the plotting and machinations came with huge emotional stakes and I was riveted.

I was already a Roanhorse fan from her Sixth World series, but this is a whole different level of awesome. So, hurry up, Ms. Roanhorse and get that next book out here. I'll be here waiting :-)

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Future Noir

Revisado: 03-10-20

Cybil Lewis knows it's a bad idea to take a personal case. But when her younger protege asks her to find her missing cousin, she agrees. As the case progresses, a man from her own past resurfaces and complicates things even further.

I enjoyed the character--a woman of experience who still can be blindsided. The world was intriguing with just enough detail about the technology and changes to society so far in the future without losing the story or characters in the mix.

Quite a quick and enjoyable read, neither light fluff nor heavy drudgery, but a nice middle ground that entertains while making you think. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Darla Middlebrook and enjoyed the voice she brought to the pages.

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Quietly hair-raising

Revisado: 11-11-18

This memoir follows a girl into womanhood in an unusual family: a survivalist Mormon one. Her life's journey was fascinating, and at times harrowing. The narration by Julia Whelan was perfect for the story, understated and calm even when describing difficult moments. #bittersweet #memoir #windows #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

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Great interpretation of a classic murder mystery

Revisado: 11-08-17

I read this one in paper when I was a tweenager. When my book club picked it thirty years later, I didn't remember much, other than that I really enjoyed it.

This Audible Original Drama version was a delight. The actors obviously enjoyed their work, and did a wonderful job differentiating all the different characters and accents and nationalities.

Unfortunately, I remembered how it ended a little bit before I got there, so the ending lost some impact for me, but it was a great performance and great fun!

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Excellent Narration kept me afloat

Revisado: 08-17-17

This was my second attempt to assail the infamous white whale. The first time I was a mere landlubber of some twenty years. Now I'm seasoned old salt (at least of the literary seas) of two score and six. That alone may have made some difference. I also listened to it as an audio book this time. I'm sure that helped, keeping me focused when my eye might have wandered. In any case, I loved it. This narrator was perfect, neither over nor under dramatic, able to represent all the varied types of chapters well.

What I remembered was that, after an engaging beginning, the book became a slog. And it is assuredly a challenging book. I still found it so. It took me a solid month to read, even on summer vacation when I have much more time to read than life normally affords me.

Not only is it nearly as big a tome as Moby Dick is a whale, it changes tone from chapter to chapter. Sometimes it seems a comedy with a snarky narrator entertaining us with portraits of whalers and their lives. Sometimes it seems an erudite study of the creatures and ways of the sea. Sometimes it seems a philosopher's meanderings through an inner seascape, searching for morality and meaning. Sometimes it seems a Shakespearean tragedy on a rolling seawater soaked stage. I can see why it wasn't an insta-hit when it was new, especially if you'd come to it as a fan of Melville's more straightforward sea adventure stories.

My love might also be because 2017 has been my year for poetry. I was sucked in completely by the language, losing myself in gorgeous descriptive passages, wonderful word play, and compelling metaphors. I wore out my bookmark button marking striking passages. And they weren't all in the "plot" chapters. Beautiful language and deep thoughts abound in the "whaling" chapters, too. At times, I could hear echoes of Whitman, Coleridge, Irving, Poe, Darwin, Hawthorne. It seems Melville's masterwork taps into that romantic flowing zeal of the 1800s that marked so many of the works of the era.

I'm glad I came back to this book and gave it another chance. Sometimes, perhaps, it's not about the book itself, but about whether it's your time for reading it.

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Chilling and Thrilling

Revisado: 04-09-17

This is another re-read for me. I read the paper version as a child, and all I could really remember was that I loved it. Wow! What a story. Bernadette Dunne has a very young sounding voice, which was perfect for narrating as Mary Kat, the sociopathic girl at the heart of this story.

What I hadn't remembered was the suspense. The slow reveal of what had happened, and how Shirley Jackson was able to surprise me at so many turns by going a different direction than I expected and still thrilling me.

The genius is in how she can play on your sympathies. The main character is an unreliable narrator and a frightening person, and yet she has my sympathy. I'm on her side.

Wonderful!

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