Bryn Stevens-Guill

Great narration

Revisado: 04-23-24

Rachel Mcadams did an amazing job conveying Anne’s dreamy earnestness. Was a pleasure to listen to. I wish there were more.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A beautifully crafted and heartfelt story

Revisado: 05-08-23

This sequel poignantly handles a variety of important social issues, the most prevalent of which being colonization and the intolerance and ignorance of the cultures of people who are different from us. I also appreciated how these social issues wove effortlessly into the masterfully crafted worldbuilding. In the first book we are introduced to the Quigutl pronoun “ko”, which is a gender neutral pronoun in the Quigutl language called Quootla. Tess has been fluent in Quootla since she was a child, but it is only until the second book that Tess thinks to ask about her childhood friend Pathka’s preferred pronouns, and asks another Quigutl if she should have been calling Pathka “ko” this entire time. The quigutl explains that no, ko is only used if you are speaking Quootla. “But you should have asked a long time ago,” admonishes the quigutl, smacking Tess in the knees with their tail. “Fair enough,” responds Tess, offering no argument. I don’t think there could have been a more natural way to illustrate how simple it is to do the same for a real life person.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A worthy sequel

Revisado: 10-20-22

This is everything I wanted from a sequel to Out of Oz. I was a bit on the fence with the last book which didn’t focus on Rain enough for my taste, and this book provided me with everything I felt was missing from that one. The structure of the story and writing style is comfortably familiar. I still don’t particularly care for the narrator of the book, but she did a good job anyways. I’m already eagerly awaiting the third book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

It's not even my birthday!

Revisado: 10-30-21

Out of Oz might be one of my all time favorite books. I've listened to the audiobook at least a dozen separate times. Yes, it's a 30 hour long audiobook. I said what I said. I had already come to terms years ago with the fact that I would never get to know what happened to my most beloved book protagonist Rain after she threw the Grimmerie into the ocean. When this book was recommended to me by audible, I was totally blindsided. I felt almost as if the author wrote this specifically for me, who has adored Rain for many years.

The performance is ok. It is a pretty huge tonal shift from the narration of John McDonough, which was very eccentric and theatrical. In contrast, this new narrator sounds very somber and subdued. This may be intentional as the setting and culture for this book is different, but I can't quite tell.

I quite enjoyed the new setting. I feel like we barely scratched the surface of the culture and history of this mysterious new world Rain finds herself in. As for the plot of the story, it felt much more contained than the Oz books. It is a good deal shorter as well. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. If there is one criticism I had for Out of Oz, it's that despite the book being 30 hours long I felt as if there were so many bits of detail and characterization that were lost by the hugeness of the story being crammed into one book. So I'm fine with this story being much more contained. This book still introduces many new characters and lore to enjoy.

Overall, I am so happy to be able to peek into Rain's world again. I look forward to the next novel in this series.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Impeccable narration

Revisado: 09-10-21

I just want to compliment the narrator, the voice of Scott Ryder, for their attention to detail in this reading. They clearly care about the role they acted in. They went out of their way to perfectly portray the deep monotone voices of the elcor, the wheezy speech of the volus, the Eastern European accent of the quarians, and the dreamy trance of the drell reliving their memories. It’s oddly a sight better than the other andromeda audio books, which were voiced by the voice of the female main character Ryder…and they couldn’t even pronounce simple words like “Batarian” or “thessia”.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

generic but good

Revisado: 08-06-20

Your typical Chinese American story. Repressed traditional parents want their child to be a doctor, but the protagonist is squeamish and just wants to dance. Basically the same character from another recent book American panda. the narrator is alright but she is almost 40 and always sounds way too old to be voicing teenagers.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Surprisingly captivating

Revisado: 01-08-20

I was surprised by how much I liked this little story. I'm pretty critical of audible originals and never have high expectations. It was a little corny at times, but the setting and the characters were all very interesting and I finished it all in one day, sad that it was over. I'd like to see more of this setting someday.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Constant melodrama ruins a promising story

Revisado: 12-10-19

I really liked Children of Blood and Bone. I even pre ordered this title because I liked it so much. but this volume was so miserable and convoluted that I am sorely disappointed.

No character in this book is consistent. Every once in a while one of the main characters will lose their mind and act completely out of character just to fuel the constant misery and melodrama that saturates the entire story. No character is immune to making angry out of character snap decisions that ruin everything. A certain POV character basically has a hole in his head where information spills out; he is incapable of critical thinking because if he used his brain most of the useless tragedies in this book could have been avoided.

The whole book seems to be an exercise in misery. Almost constantly horrible things are happening in this book and characters are constantly suffering from one scene to the next with VERY small moments of peace peppered in. These horrible things don't feel necessary to the story, they feel like they're just happening because the author wants the book to be dark and melodramatic as possible. If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be "angst".

Every time you think something positive is going to happen, it is ripped away. This happens so often over the course of the story that it becomes boring and predictable. I didn't need to think very hard to know what was going to happen next. The structure of the story is basically this: characters do something. oh no! everything is ruined and we're very sad. characters try something else. oh no! everything is ruined and we're very sad. Rinse and repeat for 13 hours. Children of blood and Bone had this structure too, but at least it made sense in relation to the story.

This book also has an extremely unsatisfying conclusion. I don't think I'll be picking up the next one.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 27 personas

A+ Performance

Revisado: 10-24-19

The narration of this book was AMAZING. I didn't expect much from a children's book which tend to have less than ideal narrators, but the narrator had an absolutely spot on impression of Cassandra and Rapunzel. Cassandra was so close that I actually mistook her for her real voice actor at times. Imitating Mandy Moore's Rapunzel is a bit tougher, but the narrator probably did the best job I've heard, perfectly imitating Rapunzel's enthusiasm and unique tone. This enhanced my enjoyment of the book a ton. It was like closing my eyes and listening to a very long episode of the show.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña