Julie

Series Review to save you time

Revisado: 09-17-24

The first book was a ton of fun. A solid four out of five stars. My only quibble was that it ended a bit abruptly, and the witch felt a bit like the villain out of a young-adult novel, but otherwise it was solidly entertaining.

Unfortunately things got silly in books two and three- and by book three everything was getting rather repetitive. The "young adult" feel from the first book was amplified. (there's even a "tickle monster." Yea.) We're told that the characters are between 16-31, but they all felt pretty simple-headed.

In book two I found myself listening on double speed just to find out what happened. By the third book I was zoning out completely. I finished, but the ending makes it clear that the author had no intention of giving the story a satisfying end any time soon. ("it's not over yet!" = more books to come in the series.)

The story just didn't keep my interest.

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Cheesy plot, Mary Sue MC.

Revisado: 09-12-24

Full of stereotypes and tropes. Author tries to be clever, his prose is too forced, sometimes landing on nonsensical.

Example in chapter 3: "They were boys for f*** sake. Most of them had three chest hairs between them."

woooo-lad.

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Unrealism is off the charts.

Revisado: 08-26-24

About me, if it matters: female with atypical taste in books. I like every genre under the sun, including spy/ action adventure. I'm a big fan of Clancy, Vince Flynn, Le Carre, and Daniel Silva.

On to the book:

Narrator: Lindstrom did an outstanding job. I can't help but feel that his skills are what is driving the majority of the positive reviews for this book. He does male and female characters equally well. His accents are on point. He sounded just gritty enough to be a good fit for the theme of the novel while not being too distracting. I will not hesitate to listen to a book he's narrated in the future.

Story: This is where the book unfortunately falls apart. I tend to be very tolerant of unrealistic events in action novels, and I really was very patient with the book for the first 80% of it.

There were a few red flags in the beginning of the story, but not enough to make me give up. The author uses the word "mansplainer" unironically. As a reminder, I am a woman. I also find disparaging gendered language to be unnecessarily divisive. The word "condescending" already exists. I would be sick if I started seeing writers use the word "femsplaining" in their work, this is no better.

Another moment that stood out; Woodward describes her co-star main character (there are two) as being a semi-retired overseas special forces "operator" type who stays in shape and maintains a level of combat ready discipline. This guy also, for some reason, stores his weapons in a shed away from his home locked away in a safe. Every security person I've ever known (and I know many) will tell you this is a comically bad idea. Should SHTF (and it does, obviously, in this novel) the character is going to want his equipment ready at hand. Instead Woodward made our MC run out to the shed, open the safe, find his guns, assemble them, then load them, and finally gave him enough time to run back home so he could attack the bad guys. Thankfully the villains were even more incompetent than the MC, so no harm no foul.

These two hiccoughs aside, I did finish the novel. And for the most part, I found the story diverting. Unfortunately around that 80% finished mark, my eye-rolling began to get out of hand.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]
No, that was unfortunately not the end of problems with the book. One of the most mind boggling issues was the way the author treated her female MC. I doubt the author was trying to insult women when she wrote her, but a good leader is not someone who screams in the face of her subordinates, manhandles them and grabs at her service pistol to get her way. Nor should she be folding her arms and staring off into space to punish her own boss with the silent treatment. These are the actions of a teenager who can't regulate their emotions, not a professional in the DHS.

And while we're talking about unrealistic attitude problems in the security sector- look, folks, if you're in the line of work that the characters are in, the head of intelligence is not going to just shrug off a possible security breach as a simple extramarital affair. Honey traps are a very well known risk in that world. They've been around since Samson met Delilah a couple thousand years ago. THIS IS NOT A THING THAT REALISTICALLY GETS DROPPED.

Honestly, that story line made me laugh so hard I had a hard time directing my mental energy to pay attention to the conclusion of the novel- which was equally disjointed. That particular character had so much potential- and I kept thinking the author was going to do something very clever with him as a villain. But... no, not really. In fact, his involvement got so much worse. That entire sequence of events ends in the most nonsensical way- and its conclusion was, by-itself, responsible for the story losing several stars.

Unfortunately the story flaws didn't end there. There were plot holes galore. Moments when witnesses are there one moment, and disappear then next. Elaborate fight scenes in locations that make little to no sense. (a train lavatory has enough room for two grown men to beat the snot out of each other? Really? And no one notices? Not even after there's gunfire? Are we meant to be turning off our brains while reading this book?)

And while we're talking about that chapter- please let me give some advice to other authors out there about guns. Shooting through a plastic water bottle is NOT going to make your weapon "silenced." That's not a thing. I don't know what hollywood mega brain first came up with that weird plot device, but it makes writers look silly when they use it. PLEASE do some research on this stuff before putting it in your books.


[END SPOILERS]

As you can see... I didn't care for this one. Which kills me because I spent most of the book trying to psych myself up into liking it. Sorry folks.

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Repetitive, Redundant, Repetitive, and Slow

Revisado: 07-18-24

Here we have three different time periods. The earliest - the highschool years - we hear about mostly through the recollections of the characters.

The middle time period is set in the 90s. Lots of references there, and if you're genX, you'll often find yourself saying "heh" out loud a lot. (Hey, remember blockbuster? And needing to save documents every five minutes while writing? And Stone Temple Pilots?)

The last time period is some time close to current day.

You also have the perspective of four different friends, plus a small town detective, as well as some poor fisherman who finds the monster lady, and if that's not enough - we also see these events through the eyes of several random side characters.

And every one of these characters want to tell you about the things they witnessed. So while the prose is very well done (snails in mouths! Super creepy!) the plot dragged unnecessarily. And unfortunately there wasn't much pay off at the end as there wasn't much of a mystery. By the time the first of the people in the friend group dies in the middle time period you know how it's going to conclude.

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Beautifully written, satisfying ending

Revisado: 11-06-23

I would love to read more in this world Koontz has created. Frightening, even heartbreaking at times, but not without hope.

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Characters were too much of a problem for me.

Revisado: 02-15-23

Perhaps the problem was that there were too many characters. I just couldn't connect with any of them. The daughter, in particular, was especially irritating. Irritating characters are fine if you have some intriguing voices to interact, counter them and balance them out- but there were none. It's a shame because I was initially intrigued by the premise.

Ah well. I'll look for something else for now.

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I'm shocked that I didn't like this.

Revisado: 03-23-22

Mr Buehlman's book "Between Two Fires" was one of my favorite listens on this site. I've "read" it twice and have it saved in my favorites list. It was for that reason that I didn't really bother to read the reviews for this book, as I might have with a new-to-me author. I've since given a peek at what others have written and I know now that even if I had looked, I likely wouldn't have seen any reason not to spend the credit. With that in mind, I'd like to offer a dissenting opinion to the majority of the reviewers here.

First, let me just say that I got big kick out of Buehlman's performance. The songs were a different experience, but I liked them. I had no trouble with his accent. To be fair, though, I've got friends that I regularly talk to from around the world so perhaps I'm just used to different dialects.

There was a lot about this book that could have been great. The premise seemed right up my alley. Unfortunately Buehlman really stumbled with his female characters. In recent years, there has been a trend in the entertainment world to write women as if they were men in female skin-suits. I understand the motivation- it's the author's way of saying "I, a good person, want you to know that I believe women are STRONG."

Unfortunately, their definition of "strong" seems to have nothing to do with feminine strength and more to do with male strength, a subtle but important distinction. This insertion of masculine strength into a female character is something that Hollywood has an easier time pulling off than novelists do. If you're looking at Scarlet Johansson in a black cat suit, you have no trouble thinking "woman" even if she is in the process of beating the snot out of several men who are at least three times her body mass. Hollywood can use really awesome choreography and a team of CGI artists to distract you long enough to just go with their highly improbable physics for at least the next hour and a half.

Authors, however, have a tougher job. We spend more time with their characters, so we have more time to get to know them. Women written like this rarely work in books. They especially don't work if EVERY woman is written this way.

As a woman, I can appreciate that the author is coming at this with good intentions. I understand that. But... I hate it.

I found this particularly disappointing as the character of Delphine in Between Two Fires was marvelously written. I know that Buehleman is capable of doing better.

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Wow. That was refreshing!

Revisado: 12-15-21

I have really missed true adventure stories with characters you can easily empathize with.

Hollywood writer wannabe gets sucked into an alternate reality and through the dangers, he learns how to stand up for himself and the people he cares about. There's a lot of opportunities for humor and Klavan takes full advantage of that.

I have only two complaints: the narrator was... adequate. Mostly. Except when he was doing voices other than Austin's. I would not complain if he was replaced with someone else for book two. (sorry Mr Knowles.) [EDIT TO ADD: I've since listened to books 2 and 3 in this series and it's clear that Knowles' performance greatly improved after this book. His narration moving forward was excellent. I'm changing my review to reflect that.]

Secondly, the book is a cliff-hanger. Had I known, I would not have picked it up at least until I knew book two was already out. I don't mind serials, but I have a real problem when each individual book doesn't feel like a complete story by its conclusion.

That said, I'm glad I didn't know it was going to be a cliffhanger because I would have otherwise missed out. Loved it. Please finish the next in the series soon, Mr Klavan! [NEW EDIT TO ADD: the entire series is out and it is phenomenal. Highly recommend all three books.]

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This is not Dexter.

Revisado: 11-18-21

Based on the description, I understand why people would think it is, but it's not Dexter. It's nowhere near Dexter.

Setting that aside...

Years ago I watched an interview with a certain author. They claimed there was a rule when it came to writing main characters- you have to make them only slightly dumber than your average reader. The idea being that the reader should be able to easily follow along, and maybe even come up with the solution to the mysteries in the story around the same time that they are being revealed.

I hate that rule.

Personally, I want my main characters to be smart. I want the world around them to be intelligent. The struggles should feel real and if the main character triumphs, I want it to be because they are really damn clever and persistent.

I hate that rule, but I'm glad I watched the interview, because I can now easily spot when a writer is following it. Ragland is definitely one of those writers. And it's not just his main character. It's the entire plot. His whole world is full of people and situations that are a special sort of clueless.

There is one unintentionally comical scene where FBI agents were unable to follow and capture a suspect that was surrounded by what sounded like half the federal agents in the country plus seal team 6. It was like listening to a description of someone playing peekaboo with a toddler. "Where'd he go! He was there! We can't see him now, he must be gone! Oh well, guess we lost him, boys. Oh wait! There he is! Aw oops. He's gone again. Shucks."

As for the rest of it: yea, cannibal. Lots of descriptions of him chewing on himself and other people. That probably could have been something if written by someone else.

Wish I had passed.

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Bleak. Boring. Unrealistic.

Revisado: 02-10-21

I'll start with the positive. The narrator was very good. Even her voices for men were adequately performed- which can be quite a challenge for a female narrator. My only complaint is that the production seemed off- but that is the fault of the publisher, not the speaker. At times her voice became suddenly muffled, as if she were talking through a door. At other times her voice would gradually grow softer, then suddenly loud and clear. Again, not the narrator's fault. She was excellent.

As for the actual writing, I think I'd better start with James' prose. I've read other books she's written and perhaps the problem is with my memory, but I don't ever recall thinking that her books were over written. Understand, I'm not making a complaint about the length of the book. I usually prefer longer novels. (Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite authors and I'd be shocked if anyone has ever accused him of brevity.) There was simply no reason for the verbosity she employed here. There were endless descriptions of a random carpet, wall paper, the manner food was served, the way a person blinked... etc.

And then there was the way every person spoke the same, regardless of class, age, or life experience. If I was reading instead of listening, and the narrator wasn't making it clear who was speaking, their vocabulary could have been completely interchangeable.

Speaking of the characters... Look. Even if I don't care for characters in a story, I try to at least relate to them in some way. I actually found myself putting forward a great deal of effort trying to feel something other than apathy, annoyance, or even contempt for every character in the book, and was ultimately unsuccessful. A reader shouldn't have to work so hard to do the author's job for them.

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